"Look ma, I made a prototype of a rocket out of macaroni"

Someone just made the dull day a special one.


Baked macaroni was the de luxe cuisine for the day. There was no particular occasion noted on our calendar, and apparently we perceived mom as a city lady practical enough to prepare easy and "instant" dishes. Somehow that may be rational because she feeds five mouths, and works six days a week involving loud, stressful and sugar-fed elementary students. But lately I've noticed she's been planning on "special" dishes every weekend.

Wolfing down my mom's sweet, pasty macaroni dessert coated with quickmelt cheese after lunch, I remembered how young Gru in Despicable Me tried hard to make his mamma proud. He had always wanted to be an astronomer, and had constantly bugged his mom about his space rocket's progress. Even until he successfully launched a real rocket out of his "macaroni prototype", his mamma seemed to have a hard time finding more comforting and inspiring words other than "Eh".

I then reflected on how lucky I am to root from decent genes and ancestry, where a mother chose to not break away from her original family because of selfish desires, a father promised himself to quit his vices right after he saw his premature firstborn alive, and a grandfather taught his children to live a simple but productive life. Gru wasn't lucky enough as I am and didn't have much choice either, and I thought about how I sometimes took advantage of the one thing I once thought everybody has: a real family.

Until then, I may also despicably engage myself in building my own dream prototype out of macaroni shells, and without the thought that my mamma would only say "Eh".