Piggy Wars Episode I

I love it when I have a lousy day. Then I can easily put up a blog entry :)

Don’t know if you guys have encountered a new menace. I think they all belong to the same gang. It’s called the Handphone Broadcast Gang, or HBG.

I’m not sure if this gang is ran by anyone, but if it is, then that person must have an extremely limited playlist, which consist mostly of Malay ballads and irritatingly obscure hip hop songs. Now I’m a self-professed hip hop music fan and I love listening to ballads when I'm in the mood (and definitely not have it on public transport screaming at me), and for me to say this really pains me, and took quite a bit of consideration on my part. Somewhat akin to slapping my own face, but anyway, the bottomline is, the situation is NOT funny.

Today, I finally did something that I’ve been dying to do. I told one of the HBG members, right there in the middle of a crowded MRT carriage, that isn’t the music too loud for him? I must add a disclaimer here: Although I did think he had to be deaf to put the blaring speaker right next to his right ear, I wasn’t being condescending or sarcastic when I blurted out that remark before I could stop myself. I took heart that he seemed a little embarrassed and apologized for it. If I were any nastier (or truly tired of living), I probably would have asked him,” What are you sorry for? For annoying the hell out of every other tired and frustrated commuter, or for destroying the pair of ears that your Mum and Dad gave you?”

Why is it that such people can get away with this kind of terrorism on something as communal as public transport, without anyone raising an opinion about it? Don’t the offenders have an iota of consideration or sense of shame when irate daggers are shot their way? Don’t they know how annoying they are? Don’t they know that even as they bop to the grating beats, someone’s (that would be mine) blood pressure is steadily increasing, threatening to shoot out the roof any second now…

Nope. They just don’t give a flying fark.

As soon as the words left my mouth, an irrational, or maybe not so irrational fear crept into my brain. What if these guys actually belong to some neighbourhood gang and are just waiting to meet them up for the next bloody clash? Should I alight at the next station and wait for another train? Should I alight at the last station to ensure they alight before me? After 3 stations flew by, my fear gave way to weary resignation. What’s said has been said already, and truth be told, I didn’t regret it at all. If these people didn’t bother about what others feel or think, and the afflicted ones are too scared to speak up, then it’s time someone who’s fed up enough do something about it.

I must confess, I am no hero. Even as we alight at the same freaking station, I kept praying silently that they are not trailing me for revenge of their public humiliation or meeting up with suspect gang members and then trail me. I even contemplated taking a cab home, which I did not in the end. Finally relieved to get on the bus home, only to encounter another LOUDER round of HBG couple, this time some soccer teens who once again, don’t give a shit about anything else except for their own hedonistic pleasure.

On my way home, now happily satiated with a cup of bubble tea, thoughts about my childhood dream of becoming a police woman came back. I was always puzzled by this compelling draw to the police force for no apparent reason. I joined the NPCC in the naïve hope that I would graduate to the police force and serve justice one day. Well, that conviction died faster than a candle in the wind, but that fire somehow became ingested into my entire being, forcing me to acknowledge what my senses couldn’t ignore. I am sick of being victimized, although to be fair I was never abused. I am sick of being manipulated by the powers that be, although I’m seldom mistreated. I am tired of looking beyond the surface for hidden agendas and motives, but it is a fact of life. I am unhappy with how the system has evolved, but I gain sadistic pleasure from working within it.

I am a man-made disaster: Full of righteous simmering anger, rambling on and on, and not too intelligent about it.