The bus..

Hey, the sun was shining in the sky and some kind of birds were chirping. I felt outworldly jubilant, or was just because NP parade was finished for the week? Anyway, at what was 6.00+ in the evening, I boarded that belligerant bus No. 155 and headed home, with the company of an old friend and without the presence of a new one. This could have been like any other day in the past week, heck the past year where i boarded some bus to take me away from that day of sheer pressure that stems from being Sec 2. However, it was not meant to be....
I've been taking buses ever since the start of Sec 1 but they are still kind of a new experience to me. Singapore's transport system may be one that is very efficient, but I finally met its efficiency to the max today. This person was none that i had ever seen in my life. You've seen a taxi-driver, those people that take note of your parking coupons, but how many of you have ever seen a bus ticket collecter? This monstrousity of a bespectacled woman suddenly burst into my eye view while i was chatting to my friend, as though i never noticed her before. Speaking to my friend, she shouted:" Wher you tickea??" I was severly shocked. I immediately thought of that blank ez-link card that said [-30cents]. My friend put up a galland fight, but he wavered in the depths of her glance. Turning to me, she squinted through her thick glasses at me and stuck out her hand as though i owe her money. " Yer tickeat pleese?"
I must confess at this point i was at a loss for words, i didnt know that i needed to take a ticket when paying cash. The ridiculous machine always was as blank as a sheet when i approached it, I think it must be doing it on purpose. "Giv me yer tickeat lah, noat theat hard wad..." she bellowed. I must have been going red at that point, the other passengers were all staring at me. I hurriedly tried to explain to her that i didnt take any ticket but she just stared at me with those puny eyes. " Wher can no tickeat? must hav a tickeat."
I went on trying to explain my way out of this situation, but nothing got into her head. She simply refused to listen to me and continued to point that card reading thingy at me like a weopon. Suddenly, something got through. " Ahh u student ah?" she said, pointing to my school badge. "U student then say so lah. dun be so scared. can giv me your card?" At that point i almost passed out. So she had mistaken me for a grown man, after all, one can hardly see with eyesight like that. She checked my card and smiled to me to say that it "bo qian liao" and that i had to stop at the next stop. She continued to say stuff about me to the auntie next to me; " theat guy so funny, meaybe he dun understand enouughh english arh?" I was absolutely mortified. Never could the red cross of EAST SHORE hospital been so welcome, i was positively glad to get off that damned bus. My friend surely had a laugh about it; he was laughing so much he was red in the face and nearly got rammed over by a car....