Monday, August 18, 2003

The office is so very quiet on Monday mornings... so quiet that the sound of my sneakers shuffling on the carpet as I stoll in, 5 minutes late, is unusually and embarassingly defeaning. You can just about see little grey clouds hanging over everyone's head with the words "Blardy ******* Monday!" flashing in dim neon lights with a few missing bulbs. I'm very careful to tread lightly around the cubicles of my supervisors on Mondays (not to mention around my supervisors themselves). No one wants to be the victim of Monday massacres.

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I like singing... when nobody is listening. I sing in the bath, I sing with my radio blasting so no one can hear me and I even sing when I'm working in the factory line (the machines are so noisy you'd have to shout before someone even notices you're trying to catch their attention and besides, singing helps me to pass the time while doing mechanical tasks). Lately I've taken to singing in the car when I'm driving (alone!!). I've noticed that this elicits weird stares from other drivers (but why the heck are they looking into my car in the first place? Traffic lights are not stop-and-check-what-the-driver-next-to-you-is-doing zones!).
Seeing that drivers next to me are always checking me out, I decided to check out what other drivers were doing. Here's what I've noticed: The majority of middle-aged, working-class drivers who are alone in their cars usually stare blankly out of their windscreens, eerily resembling zombies. I dare say they hardly blink. They look as if their minds have gotten up and wandered off, leaving their soul-less shells to drive their cars on auto pilot (go straight, if read red light : stop, else if read green light: go, else if read police: slow down, check that seat belt is on and road tax has been paid).
Now if there is more than one person in the car, the driver is noticeably more alive. Two women drivers are always giggling and more often than not, their eyes are not on the road (I have personally seen this for myself when Jun Ling actually turned around to talk to the few of us seated in the back seat while driving. I appreciate the fact that we are still alive). If it's two guys however, it's just plain dangerous. Guys tend to become aggressive in packs. They honk at me, they overtake me at fatal speeds and they edge their flashy cars right up next to mine and give me dirty looks when I'm taking too long at a junction (I can just about hear them cursing "woman driver!"). I nonchalently retaliate by edging my car ahead of theirs and taking my time to infuriate them more... which my mother says is going to get me pounded to pulp one day. If they are not the type who are bitching to each other about the lousy woman driver in front... then they are flicking their hair and adjusting their shades and if they are in their twenties, they give their best shots at looking debonair-ish... or if they are in their forties they sport the air of datuks or tan sris (this helps if they are driving the latest BMWs and are trying to bump my little Waja out of the way).
One last leetle teensy fact I've noticed that is possibly of no importance to anybody is that, I've never caught anyone singing! I'm not going to start a support group, but honestly don't you think singing would just brighten up everyone's day... even if you're stuck in a traffic jam on the LDP that moves an inch every 10 minutes. Then, perhaps everyone will stop staring at me bopping my head while singing along to Hitz.fm in my car.