Monday, May 19, 2008

Depleting tolerance.

Today I decided to play a few relaxing games of bowling. Since it is a public holiday, my intent was just to relax and bowl a few games to work on the curl. Half-way through the game a family came by and parked themselves into the adjacent lane.

They must be some bowler-family, with father-mom-son easily scoring 140 and above each per game and making alot of noise with every strike they got. They kept intruding into my lane, (the dad teaching the son how to bowl properly), and that 2-person stance kept blocking my lane.

Okay, never mind, I was in no hurry, so whilst they blocked my lane, I sipped my drink and checked my phone. But what really irritated me was when I was about to toss, the damn big-mouth dad came to tell me off that the person on the right lane (his family), should throw first.

He had the audacity to tell me off citing some lame safety reason that the person on the right lane should toss off when both are preparing to enter the lane at the same time. Okay, actually that would have been fine, I'll have taken it that they were very engrossed in their game.

But it was his attitude and they condescending way he spoke to me that elevated my heart-rate. This guy is 1 head shorter than me, probably weighing about the same. Even if he was trained in Silat, I could have taken him on easily.

Okay actually never mind about that too! It was just words after all, you wanna play first go ahead. Then he had the BALLS to put his hand on my right shoulder whilst smirking like a cheshire cat as if he had owned the place and saying that the person(s) on the right lane should always go first as a form of courtesy. He touched me. Like we were long-time friends.

WTH?

If my body was on auto-pilot, he would have been seriously injured. My muscle memory just wanted to wrench his filthy arm off my nice clean shirt, maybe smash his Ulna and radius, and break his metacarpus.

But of course, I kept my tolerance and my cool, so I smiled and pushed his arm gently away, but I just wanted to lash out at him and give that stupid man a piece of my mind. He was like so short. Like a 1.5m or 1.6m or something. But nevermind I am a benevolent person and I brushed it aside, I didn't have any mood to continue bowling anymore, I finished off the last set and left.

As I was leaving, he tried to come up to me again to make amends. But it just didn't sound like it, it sounded more like he embarrassed himself and wanted to be "friends" again. Yeah Right.

I could have destroyed your upper limb you piece of shit. Lets see how you get a score of 140 again. Okay, maybe it was my black face that I returned and he skulked silently back to his pathetic awaiting brood.

First you irritate me, then insult, then man-handle and violate me by touching me?? You are even lucky to be alive. If this was the back alleys of Jakarta, I wonder if you have the same balls to tell off another stranger like that in the face.

Actually I would have not bothered to write this entry at all, but later in the lift, I met all manner of shitty attitude from Singaporeans that really aggravated me for the day.

At the bowling Alley, in the lift, in the Mrt...

People trying to squeeze into the lift, or others in front not letting the ones in the back out, or the ones in the back can't reach the buttons and no one bothers to help PRESS a damn button. I was one of those squeezed into the back, wasn't let out, and missed my level.

That was incredibly irritating I tell you. Plus there was this hostile atmosphere in the lift and everyone is the enemy of the person standing next to him/her.

The same thing happened when I attempted to board the mrt back home. People rushing in as soon as the doors open with complete disregard of those trying to get out, so much so there were actually shouts and vulgarities sprouted at one particular station when there was a 2-way scramble at the doors. Those forcing their way in, and those forcing their way out. It's totally against physics I tell you. And it's not funny.

Never mind about not getting seats, what about standing places! People Can't even MOVE to shift their fat bodyweight aside to let others pass or allow more standing room. Everyone wants to crowd at the door, and those courteous enough to move towards the center find that they can't get out when their station arrives.

We're fast becoming a ultra-dense city like Tokyo or Hong Kong.. Singaporeans are just become slowly intolerable, short-tempered and impatient at public locations. Because of the proximity of the increasing population density in singapore, more and more people are being cramped into the same land area, and because of that people are intruding into the private circles of others more often. It's no wonder why people are getting more irritated and short-tempered. But we can all learn tolerance. Can you imagine if I had retaliated and hit the irritating man in the bowling alley today? There would have been no end to it.

Oh, I do try to be nice when I can. But how can I do it if everyone else out there think I am the enemy? Tell me to be a gracious and courteous Singaporean? Even the "Courteous orange lion" gave up and has left a long time ago...

There should be some major disaster in the selfish land to wake some bloody people up and then people will start becoming nice to one another again.

Posted by MK at 4:33 PM