Noise Pollution

So we come home and are faced with an RC event at the foot of the next block, spilling over to the foot of ours, at which the Guest-of-Honour happens to be our MP, who we didn't vote into office and who had the gall to say that couples who do not procreate 'for the good of the nation' should be fined. Or made to feel that they have been very, very naughty.

Hyeah.

Let's hope some earnest procreating heartlander damages his eardrums on the karaoke machine. I can hear them now from the 11th storey.

The abbatoir sounds a lot better than downstairs.

***

Today, at lunch with the grand-daddy of the Shooting Home workshops at the Big O Cafe at Wheelock Place, he proceeds to tell us of an incident of road rage at the Plaza Singapura last night that left his friend shaken and the road bullies facing charges.

To be brief - said friend admitted she cut in front of the offending driver and his wife, but waved to apologise for it (and anyone who has driven on Handy Road leading to Plaza Singapura would already know that there's sometimes very little drivers can do on a road where two lanes merge into one very quickly and with very little space for maneuvering). However, yuppie in expensive blue car felt that the apology wasn't enough and cut back in front her after horning her loudly. Then, even after that, followed her to the sixth storey to harangue her. With his wife.

With his very pregnant wife.

[Boggle]

Look, I think at the point when your expecting wife steps out of the car too to hurl abuse at the other driver is just about when it's no longer justifiable for you to be mad. Driver cuts in front of you, causing you to brake suddenly, throwing your wife forward. Sure. I can accept you getting out of the car to seek some redress. And to follow the other driver all the way to the car park? Maybe you're long-winded. That's still fine in my book: you want the other driver to show some more remorse for cutting you off. But if you're trying to defend your wife, have said wife stay in the car as the aggrieved party. If she can come out and help you abuse the other driver? That's stepping over the boundaries of civil behaviour into the realm of bullying.

Long story short, the police were called and KC's friend had to stay in her car for four hours while the boys in blue sorted out the mess.

Yeesh.

***

I got a chance to visit two hospitals today because the missus mistakenly thought that her grandmother, who had broken her arm in a fall, was at Tan Tock Seng Hospital when she was actually at Alexandra Hospital.

An eye-opener. To say the least. I haven't been to either hospital in a while and the changes have been amazing. I was expecting dingy, dim colonial architecture bringing out gloominess of any government-run medical facility. But not so today. TTSH has had a facelift that's befitting the hospital that was at the forefront of the battle against SARS. Even Alexandra is brighter, with funky modern fittings and colour schemes.

OK, so I'm not so afraid of hospitals anymore.

***

One final thing: I would like to offer to all taxi operators this little test for job applicants because just making sure that they possess a Class 3 Driving License isn't enough. That's something akin to calling someone with a opposable thumb and a working index finger a photographer. I mean, a monkey could use a camera, but that doesn't make it a photographer.

Anyway, my idea...

Fill a plastic 16 oz cup with water (one of those Starbucks take-away deals) and cover it with a cap, but one with more than just the one opening for us to drink out of. Have four. At the cardinal points of the cap. Then have the cabbie-potentiate drive at least 15 km. If the water spills because he's one of those idiots whose vehicles jerk because he uses the engine brakes a lot, or if he jams on the brakes too hard, he fails and cannot be a cabbie for six months, after which he must take the test again.

I, for one, am so SICK of being jerked around (literally) by bad drivers who leave me at my destinations feeling completely nauseated.