more tales from the Spore public transport system...

it's buses this time round, nothing much interesting happened on the mrt recently leh, but last week there was this particular incident that stood out. i was taking the East-west line from Bedok to Buona Vista(laptop prob, software cock up again/virus attack.) it was in the morning, and juz nice the morning crowd was gone, so the mrt was quite empty, so i managed to find a seat.it's like a really lucky thing to find a seat so early in the journey, usually it's packed. then since it's a long journey, naturally u 'll most likely wan a seat to rest, instead of standing for abt 20 stations. if u are one of those who travel daily on the mrt for long distances, u will know wat i mean.

As a typical singaporean, spore ppl like to sit in corner seat. with one side facing the glass that kind, so as to eliminate the possibility of a shady character sitting beside u,(eg: ppl with body odour or juz funny smelling ppl, che-ko-pei aka dirty old men who try get fresh with female passengers they sit beside with, people with no personal hygiene er.. dig nose, touch underside of his soles n dunno wat other ppl are out there...)

i happened to get a seat that is 2nd nearest to the glass side, that means one seat away.(refer to diagram below)
X X X
X X X

key: X= my seat
= glass side
X= ideal seat, but occupied.

ideal seat is now occupied by an auntie, and mrt continues it's "long journey to the west"
mrt stops at Eunos, auntie alights, i get prepared to move to ideal seat, then kenna intercepted by large, big boned "shenton way" type guy who now occupies ideal seat. mrt goes on to Paya Laber, large plump Indian lady now comes in and occupies seat on my right(aka X)

situation now: stuck between 2 large-sized people squeezing a small sized me in a tiny mrt seat for a very long journey.(the mrt that i took was the new one, with bigger seats, even then i still felt like a sardine in a can)
possible ways to salvage situation: give up seat, and stand for the rest of the journey.
method rejected due to: laziness/unwillingness to stand for rest of journey and possibility of appearing rude to the other 2 passengers beside me.
situation in the end: small-sized me sandwiched for rest of the journey...

disclaimer: i have nothing against big-sized people, it just so happens that i was sandwiched between them and felt a little helpless.

and now on to buses...
location: bus-stop outside Bedok mrt entrance
time: evening, 30-06-2005

i was waiting for my bus when juz nice my bus came along so dun have to wait too long(i hate waiting long periods for buses esp if i'm in a hurry) it was bus no 67 a TIBS bus(the other bus company besides SBS), the seats inside TIBS buses are the colourful kind and the boundary between one seat to another seat is clearly indicated.
and it juz so happened that the bus was rather crowded and so i moved to the back of the bus to get a seat.(got seat muz seat mah, where got ppl so stupid got seat dun seat one) there was this particular attitude problem uncle who was sitting in the inner seat. he also had a plastic bag with him and his legs were a little spaced out over the middle boundary to the outer seat, he placed his plastic bag beside him but not on the outer seat. as the outer seat was empty, i juz sat on it lor.

the moment i sat on the seat, that uncle turned his head away from me, then his eyes shift back to glance me from the side then he make a "tsk" sound. it was as if i was wrong to take that seat like that. hey, that seat was empty and the bus does not belong to him. hey uncle, if u dun wan ppl to take that seat, u could have placed your plastic bag on it and i would have gladly sit somewhere else. if not, dun show people the "that seat belongs to me" action. Next time, take cab lar, then nobody will snatch "your seat".

luckily i'm in a good mood, otherwise i could have given him "the eye"(diao/stare at him) i changed seats 2 bus-stops later, it makes the rest of my journey home a lot happier.