Hoggers

KL Sentral to the Station-where-I-would-be-met-by-Yamtuan.

I was minding my own business. Overheard a couple of girls talking,
‘He said he doesn’t love me anymore and he wants to move on. What do you think he REALLY means?’ (Duh?)
It is so typical of us girls to always look for hidden messages, trying to read too much into the lines. Maybe he just meant what he said. You move on too, girl.

There was one time when I was given a ride home by a colleague so I reached the house before Yamtuan and the children. We were planning to go out so Yamtuan said he would just wait for me outside. I got pretty excited because it would be almost like a date in the sense that he wouldn’t know what I would wear, how I would look. (Now that I think back, it does sound very juvenile, downright stupid.) So I went through the wardrobe looking for something that I haven’t worn for quite some time, a surprise I thought. I found this long, cotton, sleeveless, wide-necked dress, very east-india or somerset bay type. To my pleasant surprise, it fit still. I put on a denim jacket over it to hide my shoulders. Put on a bit of colours on my face. And waited for Yamtuan.

His first reaction was, ‘baju apa (or siapa) mini pakai ni?’ (he calls me ‘mini’ short for ‘miniature bini’).
He had a frown on his face. In my mind, I read his reaction as ‘tak cantik’ and I was hurt as well as disappointed. I wanted so much to sort of romance him. I had nothing new and nothing pretty to wear, so I thought something old that he once liked would be just as pleasant as a surprise. He had forgotten that the dress was even mine. And so I sulked.
Without going through the details, let’s just say that in the end, I found out that Yamtuan meant just what he said, what was I wearing, nothing between the lines (or so he insisted). Trust me to make a whip cream out of plain milk!

Back to the train.

And my phone rang. It was Yamtuan.

‘Mini kat mana?’
‘Stesen Berikutnya.’ I answered.
‘Stesen mana?’
‘Stesen RMKL’ hehe
‘betul-betulah! Kita dah berakar tunggu dia. Cepatlah! Kenapa lambat sangat!’ wo… marah! But Yamtuan, contrary to popular folklore, i DO NOT 'drive' the train.

And the reason for my being late is all those other commuters! I will tell you why.

Everytime a train reaches a station, any station, the waiting commuters will push and shove and fight teeth and nails to get into the train before even the passengers inside can get out. Even when the train is empty as wasteland and one can get maybe half a coach all to himself, they must STILL fight to get in. This I cannot comprehend. This is not a fully automated train, you have locomotive pilots with huge side mirror. The pilots can very well see you and they won’t close the door while you are in the middle of it trying to get in. And it is not like the most punctual of trains. 15 minutes delay is common. He can wait an extra a few seconds for you to come in-go out. There really is no need to scratch anybody’s eyes out, one would think!

In such situation, I usually would play ‘galah panjang’ with them, just to annoy them a bit. This takes a few seconds, maybe at most a minute.

One reason why I missed the earlier train.

And then the escalators. If you are not in a hurry, stand on the left. Let the right side be a smooth flow for harried commuters. I need to hurry to catch another train, sometimes I can even see it on the other platform. But I am stuck on the escalators. I do sometimes nudge them, berdiri belah kiri encik. But sometimes they would say, ‘nak cepat ikut tangga biasa lah’. Hello, if I walk on the escalator it will be so much faster isn’t it? Friends MUST stand side by side, couples MUST be touch-feely side by side (oh, get a room or let me through!)… hayo, I call that hogging. Don’t hog the escalators. It is bad manners!

Another reason why I missed the earlier train. And so I was late. No sir, not my fault.