The perks of being pregnant

I always dread the time when it's end of the day and I've to make my way from Commonwealth back to Sengkang. It involves taking the East-West MRT to Outram, followed by the NEL to Sengkang, then the LRT to Renjong. I never look forward to the one-hour plus journey home.

I used to always take the NEL to HarbourFront so that I can get a seat for the trip back to Sengkang.

But nowadays, I stopped doing that, I'll just board the NEL heading towards Punggol directly at Outram. The reason? Coz almost always, I will get a good samaritan to offer his/her seat to me. hehehe... that's the advantage of carrying a load in front of you.

Of course, I'm taking a risk. There's always a high chance of noone standing up and offering me his/her seat. But that's quite seldom now, since my bulch is one that you cannot ignore and pretend that I'm just being fat.

However, I do notice that more often than not, it's the ladies who stood up to offer the seat to me while the guys pretend to be sleeping or not noticing or reading papers. We are talking about abled, strong, executive-looking type of guys here. Somehow it confirms my long-standing theory that Singaporean men are simply no gentlemen and NOT gracious at all. Many times, guys will only give up their seats if they are alighting at the next stop. And they will hog on to their seats until it's almost time to alight.

As much as I appreciate how gracious Singaporeans can be, I must say that there were many times when I feel ashamed for them.

This morning, I was on the EW line to Commonwealth. One elderly lady boarded the train and was rushing towards an empty seat when an executive-looking man reached the seat earlier and sat down. Obviously knowing that the elderly lady wanted the seat, he didn't even bother to offer it to her. He was oblivious of the fact that he was a tall, strong, steady man versus a weak old lady. He sat down, pulled out his papers and started reading it, like nothing has happened. Bast***!

In another incident, I was also on the EW line when an elderly lady boarded at Tiong Bahru. All seats were taken, and noone bothered to stand up. So I stood up and offered my seat to the old lady. Can you imagine? A pregnant woman offering her seat to an elderly woman when all the other seats were occupied by young executives and many males??!! Ridiculous right? More ridiculous is, a couple of them alighted at the next stop!!!! Then why can't they get their butts off the seats slightly earlier???? What's happening to our people??

Another incident, it was this Indian lady, she places her paper bag on the empty seat next to her and ignores the fact that there were people who could use that seat. The irony is: she's reading the holy bible. Wonder what she has learnt from all those religious readings.