Rides to Nowhere

Bus routes in Singapore are a lot like the roads in Singapore. If you haven't used them in like two years, chances are you are bound to get lost.

That's just what happened when my spirit of save some money, use public transport kicked in last evening.

With a spring in my stride, a chip on my shoulder, Aneesha and I boarded bus number 173. I'd last boarded this one over two years ago. At that time it made a whistle stop at the bus stop opposite Rail Mall. So it was that we scanned our Ezy Link cards next to the even more intriguing reader machines:
"Wow, so good, it's free," chirped Aneesha
"No, it's not dear, it's like the NETS machine. Someone has to work, someone puts money in the bank, then these mysterious machines dispense it."

As I ran through the machinations of modern day machinery, I didn't notice that the bus which should have taken us straight two bus stops away has turned into the Hume stretch. That's till Aneesha screeched "Mamma, this is not Bukit Timah!"

Of course, it wasn't I realised as I painfully looked at Symphony Heights. We jumped, frantically pressed the bell, alighted at the next bus stop, then tried in vain to get a cab.

If you've lived here long enough, you'd also know you'll never get a cab when you need one!

So after 10 minutes of wildly moving our arms, I decided walking was the only option. By this time, we'd missed our appointment time. Not that it really mattered, because doctor's appointments usually end up being registration appointments. Cards get scanned, entries are made, weight is taken, so is the height, forms are completed, any drug allergies - hmmm, not that I know so far - then you wait, start thumbing through all the parenting, baby, health and whatever other magazine happens to be on available. Of late, I've been spending so much time at various doctors that I've started catching up on real reading. Between the registration to the seeing to the payment to the picking up the medicine, one can easily go through half a novel, if the kids are effectively engaged. They usually are coz the telly shows them their favourite cartoon shows, anyways.

So it was that during our wait last evening, we finished revising half of EVS and once we were done with the rest of the ritual that I just explained above Aneesha popped the painful question:
"Are we going back by bus?"

"No, no, just stick your hand out, will you?"

And to think we've been doing all of this while Bala's car sits in the car park and I continue failing my tests by mounting some insurmountable curbs in the driving circuit. That, though is one lOOOOOOOOOOOOONG story.