Aiming Straight

I don't know what possessed my dad to buy us a dart set. The one in the photo (left) was exactly the same set I used as a kid growing up in Geylang. I discovered them again recently in an old toy shop somewhere near Bugis Junction. I think some company in China revived and manufactured them.

Along with this dart set, my dad also bought a dart board, which looked like wood. But when we started pelting it with the darts, it soon became apparent that the dark board was made of rolled up cardboard. It was in concentric circles and wound very tightly. Each segment was numbered 1 to 20. The bull's eye at the center was painted red. Actually, it's coiled construction helped it to 'heal' from the holes we made.

Like I said, I do not know what possessed my dad to buy us this game. No matter which door we hung the dart board on, it proved to be a danger to that person walking in. Also, we would miss the board and hit the door, thus incurring the wrath of our mom for making holes in it. We would then hang it on the back of a chair, which was no better. We soon started making holes in it as well. Eventually we got bored and aimed our darts at cardboard boxes. But that would bring another round of scolding and caution. "Don't you go poke holes in my cloth pieces inside!" She was referring to her "poh shui" (Cantonese for patch-work pieces).

At times our misses would chip at the rough walls creating sparks. Since it was such a novel effect, we would start skimming darts on the concrete surface of our backlane just so to see sparks fly. Of course, that would blunt the darts. But more the reason to grind them on the ground to create more sparks!

That's the sort of mischief we would get up to. We all loved animals, so we would never ever throw darts at them.

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