So the drama

It was for me another evening of queueing for the transjakarta heading Ragunan a.k.a. heading my way home. Except that I was quite dizzy at that time. Perhaps I was a bit overwhelmed by the stress from works.

Or perhaps the cause stood next to me. You see, standing next to me in the line was a girl who was talking animatedly over her cell phone to someone which I assumed to be her boyfriend (or soon-to-be ex boyfriend, judging from her speaking tone):

"... You know it was easy for me to get the scholarship ..."

Well, trying to be some snob, eh?

"... My parents always see to it that I get the best of everything. ..."

But why the hell are you standing here waiting for the bus? Shouldn't your parents buy you a car and get you a chauffeur so that I don't have to hear those annoying rants of yours?

That girl went on talking and talking, and somehow never stopped for a response from the other party. It was as if she got mad at this sorry dude/gal whoever he/she was, for treating her like someone unworthy. Poor chap (I'm talking about the person at the other end of the line). It has always been a wonder to me how someone could talk on and on non-stop, without giving a chance for the person he/she was talking to to give response, and that night I had to witness it. Worse, I felt like I was the one getting some pieces of her. How irritating! I grew dizzier and dizzier by minute, I felt like snatching her phone and smashing it into pieces!

Do people never think of others? It's always getting into my nerve seeing people standing by the entrance/exit doors, huddled like there is no room inside while as a matter of fact there is. Really, I think our society urgently needs to get some lessons on manners to apply when riding on public transportation. So far when taking the transjakarta bus, you can only see some etiquette poster, according to which you should give your seat to the elderly, pregnant ladies, or the handicapped passengers. I think there are more that need to be informed to passengers.

I admit our passengers, especially the transjakarta ones, are not that bad. I mean, most passengers obey the etiquette shown in the poster. It's time to teach some more etiquette, though. Perhaps the transjakarta management would care to post a poster of what to do and not to do when riding on transjakarta, on their bus stop wall? Or maybe there's a company that would like to distribute flyers which illustrate or describe the proper bus manners, as a part of their CSR practice? Somehow I think people do not act civil because they just do not know how to act the way a civil person should.

If you want to know more about these proper public transportation manners, I suggest you visit this and this one too. They seem to have described all the necessary dos and don'ts when taking the public transportations. If you want to have some laugh over some crazy things people do on the bus, something like "spitting out the window (is) perfectly acceptable (in China), bonus points for hitting a cyclist or pedestrian," check out this site. Have a bit of laugh before you have to get on the bus and face the reality again.