Drive

Drivers are queer people. There's the good (a rare bunch), the bad (there's more of these) and the lousy (a plague on roads all over Singapore). Not to forget the rude (the famous third finger) and the ugly (a strange phenomenon).

Pau and I were at the bus stop today after school, waiting for one of the four buses that would bring us home. It didn't take more than five seconds for us to see a 67, which we quickly flagged down, only to have the bus screech to a halt in front of us. The bus doors proceeded to fly open, with an extremely incensed looking driver in the driver's seat, yelling at us to hurry up. He looked terribly irritated with us for having flagged him down (correct me, but aren't buses meant to be flagged?), and before the both of us could even get into the bus proper, the doors closed, and the bus took off at rocket speed, causing some embarrassing stumbling around on our part to gain our footing, for which I could really have killed the bus driver for.

Knowing that it's really monotonous and tiring for bus drivers to have to travel along our roads the whole day, I usually try to be as nice and friendly as possible, smiling when I get onto the bus and saying "hi" or "thank you" or something to that effect, in a bid to cheer them up. But today I was determined to keep my mouth shut, because if I'd ever met a bus driver who didn't deserve a smiley passenger, this bus driver was it.

Continuing to stumble along to the back of the bus, carrying a huge and therefore very hazardous Higher Chinese dictionary (which meant I was in danger of potentially murdering an innocent bus passenger), Pau and I finally managed to sit down. As though it wasn't enough that the bus driver was one who shouted at people to quicken their pace when getting onto the bus, he drove so fast that it was almost as if he was in a desperate rush to get somewhere so that he wouldn't be late, only forgive me if I'm mistaken, but buses travel on a fixed route (right?), so he couldn't possibly have been rushing anywhere. Pau called me kiasu, because in order to ensure that this mad bus driver was actually going to let us get off at our stop, I wanted to press the 'stop' button very early and get up so that we'd be standing right in front of the door, and wouldn't have to experience the possibility of him yelling at us to hurry off the bus (maybe just so he'd be able to beat the next few traffic lights and finish his route in record time, then he could be rewarded with the Best Bus Driver award from his employer - sheesh).

Well thankfully, we managed to alight from the bus safe and sound, without the bus driver driving off midway, which was quite a relief. But that was just the beginning of things to come.

After picking my brother up from school, my mom decided to drop off at Ghim Moh market to get some fruits, leaving my brother and I in the car to wait for her. As usual, I had been tasked with the ever important duty of watching out for the car park attendant so that I could peel those pesky little car park coupons and we wouldn't get fined, should one suddenly appear. So there I was, fiddling around with the purple car park coupon, when a red sports car zoomed into the parking lot opposite us. It was quite a nice car, I must say, though the red was a tad too striking, but then the car door opened, and out climbed...I don't even know what word to use to describe him. He was a plumpish, slightly over middle aged man, wearing a black long sleeved t-shirt and black pants. His hairline started from the middle of his head, with his hair thickly gelled and - get this - piled up. That may be a bit of a strange phrase to use, but I'm sure if this man could've done a beehive hairstyle with the minimal hair that he had on his head, he would have. In addition to the weird hair, he had a rather cheekopek face (people well versed in cheekopekism would understand what I mean), the kind that's just asking for a slap.

Anyway, the whole crux of the matter was the injustice in how a man like that was able to drive such a beautiful car and not have it considered illegal. Though it does seem to be fast becoming a trend, I've realised - amazingly pretty sports car, ugly/old (often both, and also rich - duh) male driver. Well, according to my brother, "Otherwise it wouldn't be fair what."

At least we can take comfort in the knowledge that money can't buy one everything.

Haha!