Schadenfreude

BE CONSIDERATE!

Thursday, November 22, 2007, 11:18 PM

My Rj: The exciting incident...

It was dark and the weather was awful. The MRT was packed with people and as usual, inconsiderate aunties were taking up several seats at one time. They were either stupid or their fats were squishing their eyes shut so they could not see that the train was crowded. I stood near the door so I could exit quickly when my stop arrived as I did not want to be stuck in the middle when it was crowded. I was absorbed in my book and I had my mp3 player blasting my favourite song by Lenny Kravitz called “Fly Away” when this short man walked in. He was holding a portable DVD player and had a backpack. He was wearing a short sleeved shirt and long black pants. When he walked in, he attracted attention for all the wrong reasons. He was the MOST inconsiderate man alive! He was blasting his movie from his DVD player, not caring how many people it bothered. I felt very irritated by that person so I nicknamed him the rat. Even though my music was loud, the sound coming from his player was louder and for the next few minutes, he happily blasted his movie for all to hear.

Being very typical Singaporeans, we gave him dirty looks but didn’t go up to him to tell him to lower the volume. But leave it to a ‘Beng’ to save the day. We usually think that they have no sense of shame which came in quite handy in dealing with this irritating rat. Two men sitting in the seat right in front of him stood up. They both looked very intimidating for their size and the way they carried themselves which was to me, a beng-like manner. I had put down my book already and was looking around the cabin. Suddenly, the bald guy stood up quickly and knocked the DVD player out of the rat’s hands and stared him down. He shouted at the guy in Chinese “Why you so inconsiderate! Who do you think you are playing the damn sound so loud?”

The DVD player sailed through the air and hit my fingers. Luckily for me, I moved back a little before the incident. If I had not done so, the DVD might have hit my head. I was hurt, but what was to come next made me scared for my life.

The rat, indignant by the fact that his DVD player was knocked out of his hands stared back at the man and shouted back “Oh yeah? Who YOU think you are hah?!? Knocking my DVD and then go and spoil it? This is Singapore and I can call the cops ok? You think you big shot issit? You go to jail!!!”

“Hah! Go then go la! This is Singapore and your damn thing so bloody noisy! You big shot issit? Call la! Call!”

The conversation escalated and Chinese and dialect vulgarities spewed from their mouths. For a moment, I thought there was going to be a fight. Everyone was staring at them and as usual, no one did anything to intervene. The rat sensing this was a fight he was not going to win backed down and went to collect his broken DVD player on the floor and called for the police on his cell-phone.

Soon everything returned to normal although some of the Malay aunties asked what was going on after the rat left. The Chinese aunties being the helpful kaypoh that they are recounted the conversation word for word. As for me, I did not need to listen as I had hit the pause button on my music player when the fight began. I was really frightened and contemplated leaving and waiting for the next train. But I thought it through and decided to stay. I kept the music off for a while more until I was sure no other exciting incident was about to happen then continued immersing myself in my music.

Also, something funny to watch!

http://www.funzu.com/content/view/2949/31/

Labels: In and out of Life - Texas