Dad's furniture upholstery shop was along Kinta Road, off Serangoon Road. At best, it was a dilapidated shack with a leaky zinc roof. It would be impossible to listen to the radio when the drumming rain drowns everything out. The interior was dark and dingy; rolls of fabric occupy the most remote corners while rats and cockroaches gingerly roam the sooted ground. The little prince(ss) in me was terrified of the place, and unless absolutely necessary, taking a leak in the dimly-lighted toilet was out of the question.

My brothers and I would spend our weekends there, often catching up on homework or playing with the neighbour's puppies. The Na Tuk Kong's shrine in front of the shop, housed under an old shady tree, has a constant stream of followers offering incense, fruits, colour-sugared biscuits and flowers. Try spouting disrespectful nonsense in front of the deity's statue and you'll be promptly rewarded with a swift wallop on the head by a gobsmacked parent. "Seoy zai ah, mou luen kom gong yeh ah!' ("you stupid boy, don't spout rubbish!")

It's a tiny adventure everytime we went around in dad's beat-up Nissan. Dad would compile books of tiny fabric, the customers would pick their favourite and once the price was settled, the real work begins. Squeezing an entire couch out of the doorway was a pain, but it came no where close to forcing it into the lift. The couch would have to be tilted until it rests vertically on its side and we'd drag, push and pull the damn thing in. My tiny built allowed me to maneuver through tight spots, so naturally I was in charge of pressing the lift buttons (hurray). But it's not fun when the lift is strewn with food bits, wrappers and worse- urine.

Sitting at the back of the Nissan was a blast- even more so when we're lying on the couches and cushions, with wind in our hair and watching the rest of the world fly by. Mum would sometimes peek nervously through the rear window to see if any of the three boys had flew off. When the skies opened, dad would scurry for shelter before encasing the goods with a huge piece of red-white-blue canvas. And the kids would have to duck under the canvas for cover- not exactly fun when it's stuffy and humid inside.

My best trips on the pickup would have to be a ride to McDonald's at Liat Towers or a trip to my cousins' place at Tanglin Halt. It wasn't until a few years later that mum and dad felt physically exhausted and decided to wind down the business in 1991. Dad replaced the pickup with a scooter, but not before he shifted his business out of Kinta Road and into Defu Industrial estate.

When I visited Kinta Road fifteen years later, the shrine was gone, the tree uprooted and the shops razed. At best, it was beyond recognition. All that's left is... wait, there isn't anything left. The only form of reminiscing that dad enjoys is the annual trip to Kinta Road for the Seventh Month festivities where he'll cart back a bucket (literally) of food blessed by the various gods.