oi, you deaf har?

The NEL is just fantastic. It takes me 20 minutes to get from Hougang to Dhoby Ghaut. In earlier days, it took me about 1 over hour to get to Orchard road. And now, half that time.

But of course, this is public transport, so there is no avoiding all the weird people you have to put up with.

For starters, the deaf. Those who plug into their iPods at 8am in the morning, blasting music of questionable taste to poor souls who don't have their ears plugged. These iPoders, I'm sure, have those super-duper ambient-sound cancelling-whachamacallit earphones. But it cancels out surrounding noise cos it probably DEAFENS you and those around you. I mean if I were SMRT, I would be grateful - commuters who voluntarily provide piped-in music.

Anyway...

...was coming home from Dhoby Ghaut today and the nerve of this young Chinese man. I was queued up at the side to the doors of the train, second in line to enter the train (if commuters had any decency or idea of what it means to queue). He tried his luck to squeeze pass me. Of cos I just stood my stance and glared at him. He was eyeing the few empty seats on the train. But you know what, buddy, so was I - why the hell do you think I'm queued up second in line?!

Anyway, I believe I have right of a seat - firstly I was in front in the queue. Secondly, I am a woman. I mean, which decent man tries to push his way pass you to get a seat?! Only in Singapore. He managed to get a seat next to me, cos another weirdo decided his bag of plastic goods perhaps didn't need to occupy ONE seat and put his bag away. Anyway once the bugger took his seat, he took out his PSP and played on it without lowering the volume on his handheld. Disgusted, I made an obvious turn of my head to stare at the game he was playing. It was a lame ah beng "follow the rhythm" game - you know the sort you play at arcade games shop where you drum as the notes stream pass you on the screen??

Then there was this woman, whom I think is not local, who was trying to put together a broken string of "pearl" necklace. On a train. Is that the most appropriate place to do something like that? Of cos I was thinking, "What if it falls on the floor?" And it did. A few stray pearls rolled to the opposite site. This rather daft woman then probably realised it's not the best place to look a broken string of pearls. Best part was - the pearls must be fake lor. Cos she just sat there, peering to the other side to see if anyone would pick up the rolled-over-the-other-side-of-the-train pearl. If they were real, she would have STOOD up and searched for them. But noooooo, she just let the men on the other side search for it. Don't you think that's such weird behaviour? I would stand up and start searching for my stuff on the train and not sit and peer. That's just plain weird.

Oh. And has anyone actually watched those "what to do if there was a bomb on our trains" clips on the trains? It calls for A.L.E.R.T.:
A - Assist by gathering your belongings
L - (shit cannot remember what L stands for) But I think it is for Listen
E - Evaluate if an object is suspicious
R - Report the suspicious object
T - Dammit! I gotta stop laughing at the clip cos I cannot remember what T stands for! What if there was a real suspicious object on the train?! I might be blasted to smeetherings! But I would say TEXT all your friends about it!

Seriously, "Evaluate if an object is suspicious". Are they for real? That shouldn't even be part of the procedure! How's the public to know what is suspicious? As an SOP check ALL train carriages! How can you depend on daft and rude ah bengs and pearl stringing ah lians to even EVALUATE if something is suspicious?

*ooo don't you just miss Singa The Courtesy Lion? I remember I used to do a damn good copy of Singa the Courtesy Lion as part of my art and craft class, and also for some strange reason I used to like drawing him. And I remember had a sleeveless tee with him silkscreened and he was popped up on the tee. I say, bring the Singa back!

Singa image taken from store.museumstores.com.sg