Adventures in Childhood Mischief

(7th of ‘My Story’ Series)

I was mischievous as a young kid. Did lots of crazy stunts then. Nothing destructive really, but mostly self-inflicted ‘atrocities’, I’d call it. If curiosity got children into trouble, I would probably be one of its best examples. Long before I learned military planning or strategic thinking, I was already conducting dangerous little “experiments” on life – with myself as the willing test case. Looking back, many of those adventures would be hilarious. Some bordered on the ridiculous. Yet hidden beneath them was a trait that would quietly shape the rest of my life: I was never afraid to explore what lay beyond the familiar.

At five years old, I decided I was going to be a culinary genius. I had watched Mama pour patis – that’s salty fish paste – into soups, vegetables, and almost every dish she cooked. Surely, I reasoned, something that made every meal taste better had to be delicious on its own. And I was convinced it had to be the secret nectar of the gods. So, one afternoon after lunch, the moment the dining room was unoccupied, I decided to pull a solo heist. I clambered up a chair to the top of the table as silently as the combat soldier I see on TV. I then grabbed the bottle, and took one heroic gulp. A massive swig at what I had expected would be pure tasty delight. And that’s when my mouth exploded. Turns out, patis taken on its own doesn’t taste anything like heavenly juice at all. I felt my soul leaving my body, and I screamed to the top of my lungs. The tears started flowing, and my family – instead of calling for a doctor – just stood there doubling up with laughter over that salty life choice I made for the day.

Another time; coming home, after a trip to the barber at age six. I spotted a pair of scissors and decided that the exhausted barber had done a lazy job. He had apparently overlooked something. I decided to complete his unfinished masterpiece myself. So I then meticulously ‘finished’ the haircut by hacking off my eyebrows; and then I marched off to show Mama my proud handiwork. She didn’t share my vision. And she yelled at me, “Why?!” I calmly explained that the barber missed a spot. To this day, my eyebrows still seem unsure whether they belong to the same face.

At 8 years old, I became a big Marvel comics fan. My favorites were the X-Men, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. I remember saving up my school snack money to buy Marvel comics then. The comics were selling for 3 for 1 peso at the National Bookstore in Sta Cruz, which was in downtown Metro Manila. Calculating my snack money and the cost for this new adventure (roughly P1.30 for comics and transportation cost), it would take me roughly 3 to 4 weeks to raise the amount.

The plan itself felt seemed an elaborate military-style operation – deviously, deliciously dangerous. No one knew – not even my brother Manoy Monching – that I would sneak out of our regular Saturday after-lunch siestas. I had chalked the route from memory: three blocks or a 15-minute walk to the jeepney stop, a 30-minute ride to Sta Cruz, 5 minutes max in the bookstore, then a quick retreat to the home base minus some well-saved coins, and my heart racing with excitement. An hour and thirty minutes, that’s all that I needed; and hopefully, my mama would not be looking for me during that time. This would be one of the first times for me to make a bold gamble in going on unauthorized activities (‘take life’, we would call it in the Academy later). And I have to admit I savored this feeling of conquest in having pulled off big wins in those daring ‘Mission Impossible’ adventures at such a young age. Looking back, this was probably my first operational plan, long before the military taught me how it’s done.

My mama never learned of these little Saturday afternoon capers until 4 decades later, when I was already a senior officer in the Army, when I finally revealed all these to her. Her voice was filled with shock and a fierce motherly concern. “What? Why did you do that? You could have been lost, you could have been kidnapped, or gotten into an accident! Bla – bla – bla…” she scolded me no end. She wasn’t talking to a senior Army officer that afternoon. She was talking to the eight-year-old boy who had disappeared quietly during those Saturday afternoons decades earlier. It’s funny now, how a mother’s worry can still sound like a storm four decades later, while the thrilling memory itself remains a bright beacon of risks and rewards, and lessons learned.

I reassured her then, not with a boastful swagger but with a steady, grown-up calm: “nothing bad happened, Ma.” The great thing about it is that I did not just survive; it’s that those daring solo Saturday ‘commando raids’ taught me to trust my own instinct, to be able to balance curiosity with caution, and to recognize that spicy dose of adventurism and cool confidence that would help me define every choice I would make in my life later.

And I would encounter many, many more ‘take life’ episodes in the decades to come; especially during my plebe year in the Academy, and in my years of field duty in the Army. This 8-year-old kid’s adventures would be a proud badge of courage, of daring, as well as good early lessons in proper planning and contingencies if plans go wrong. Only much later did I realize that those tiny adventures had been mere rehearsals. The settings would change – from neighborhood streets to military camps, from bookstores to conflict zones – but the instinct remained the same: study the situation, make a plan, identify the problems and the risks, review, rehearse if need be, before finally jumping off.

Looking back, I realize that life has a strange way of preparing us. Sometimes, the earliest lessons come disguised as childhood mischief. My childhood was a series of wacky disasters and adventures that would serve me well during my plebe year in the Academy. Whether I was treating fish sauce like fine vintage wine, or playing barber experimenting on my own eyebrows, or pulling off a solo “Mission Impossible” stunt to downtown Sta. Cruz, I was inadvertently training for my future in the Army. These escapades weren’t just mischief; they were early masterclasses in audacity, self-reliance, and the art of the calculated risk. I learned quickly that while a bold mindset gets you through the door, it’s the planning and contingencies that keep you from getting caught; or worse – as in my barbaric barber booboo – from having to explain to mama why my face looked like a structural disaster. The lesson to be learned? Just don’t ask me for grooming advice – my eyebrows still haven’t forgiven me for the “shortcut,” and I believe they’re planning a coup of their own very soon.

Cover pic courtesy of WordPress AI. Other pics courtesy of Ars Notaria, The Independent, Pinterest, When In Manila and the holgy Library. For a closer look, just click on the pics.