Talcum moonwalk

When my brother and I were children, one of our games involved pouring lots of talcum powder on the floor until it's slippery enough for us to skate around the room.

Our grandmother who took care of us, and who was entrusted with the general responsibility of inculcating common sense in us, would pretend to be upset if she were to catch us wasting talcum powder and another person's efforts to have to clean it up afterwards. So, if we were to have a "skating-fest", we would have to sneak a chance - for example, when she was just starting to prepare a meal in the kitchen, or when she was going out to the market. To create a reason to account for traces of powder on the floor, since we weren't prepared to clean up after ourselves in any circumstances, we might have dashed some powders at our neck, to pretend that we had indeed intended to apply the powder properly, but "oops. How clumsy of us to spill so much powder."

I suppose it was a lame excuse, but at that time, it seemed like she bought it, as long as our excuses were elaborated enough. On hindsight, she might have thought that an elaborate excuse was indicative enough of a common-sensical understanding that pouring powder on the floor was unacceptable.

At times, we might have improvised, for example, to play a challenging game of pepsi-cola on the slippery floor, or compete on who could slide the furthest with one stride. Sometimes, we would have practised the moonwalk.

It was a time when Michael Jackson was cool and we would try to stand on our toes and tip the hats around and look for one glove to wear. We would also try to lean forward as far as possible while standing on a spot and pour talcum powder on the floor to do the moonwalk...

Well, now, Michael Jackson is dead.

I read an article about how he underwent some radical medical treatment to extend his life expectancy to 500 years...

If even Michael Jackson is dead, then I suppose it must be time for us to grow up.