At any time, I will accept it if people say I must be seeing things. Yet why is it whenever a pregnant woman stands inside a crowded bus, the men seated within her proximity all pretend to be asleep? Upon entering the bus, this sleeping sickness is most noticeable in the forward section, where the first rows are reserved for such persons, along with those with disabilities and old people.
I have heard the term ‘Sleep it off” used as a common remedial advice when one has had a hard night at work or a long night drinking even. But when one shirks from propriety and respectability, ‘sleeping it off’ seems like a funny excuse that simply doesn’t apply.
Then in the case of other kinds of queues, be it a taxi line or one that leads to the grocery cashier or a bank teller, why do line-cutters and other offenders pretend to look away (or down) when, judging from their posture, they clearly know they have done wrong? It’s the same with motorists who sharply cut in front discourteously or make illegal turns. All pretend as though nothing happened and all look away (can’t look down on this one).
It is during instances like these that my son offers an amusing observation that is one borne of innocence and naivete. He insists most of those drivers who cut in, as though they owned the road, mostly drive white pickups and Fortuner types of vehicles. I tell him plainly, all are capable anak, and as if to admit surrender, I add it’s the way of the world.
For once, in all the above-mentioned scenarios, my only wish is to see the whites of the eyes of those who’ve done wrong. In the bus we rode home last night we had to sit in the back section as it was already all but full. The young lad in the seat in front of us had his reclined all the way back so that my partner could just fit in when she sat in back of him. I asked her if she was comfortable, should we change seats, or should I inform the guy of her predicament. Even as she just said no need and that she was fine, the whole thing nagged me throughout the trip. In all, it didn’t sit well with me that I thought maybe she just did not want me to make a big thing out of the whole situation. I knew if I were alone, I would have. As we stood to disembark, I stared long and hard at the lad, perhaps hoping for something, but he just meekly swiped through his phone as though everything was fine. In the end, I gave him the benefit of the dance; after all, everything must have just been useless drama playing in my mind. Therefore, all that turmoil I have just gone through must have been for naught. Here I am, imagining again I thought, but then, as a second thought, what’s really wrong with the world?
