A Monday Morning

A horrible Monday morning!

I was so surprised to see hundreds of people steadily walking in silence, heading towards a certain station in the North (closer to the city) when I was about to turn the car left into the big street, heading south.

- First thought came: "Ooops, is there such a thing as marching/walking day on a Monday morning? How come I did not hear anyone mention about this special event?"

- Second thought: "Perhaps the train line went down (as usual), and this time, people chose to walk than taking the tram or waiting for another train?"


Watching them walking, not sticking to the kerbs or pedestrian pathways, but everywhere on the street, the whole thing did look really scary, especially cars still ran on that medium busy street, at 60 km per hour. (No, it scared me not because of cars kept running on that streets admist pedestrians, but because it reminded me of the time I was 2-3 YO, and often had to be dragged out of bed to rush to some bomb shelters at middle of the night!).


Guess those people were a bit pissed off about something?

(you would too, if it was a chilly Monday morning (about 10 degrees Celsius) and your train decided to stop at middle of nowhere, after you had spent heaps of money on the fare... Damn damn damn!)


Oh yes, by then, I was so sure (with 102% certainty), that the train they took, broke down, for it was right then, blocked the busy street that I was supposed to turn into...

Around the stopped train, everything was in real chaos!

I thought I would solve the problem neat and tidy by heading another way, and do a round about way... Might have taken me longer, but I was sure that it would be the fastest way to take the kids to their school on time.

Wrong there!

They blocked that section of streets too (for road servicing! hahaha... Grrrrrhhhh!!!)

So, I could not turn left, but right! Which I did, but then realised very soon that they blocked everywhere, except the right and right directions.... I almost drove home instead to take the kids to school by walking instead (practically it would take the same amount of time getting there either by car or by foot, for it could be a real nightmare trying to find an empty (and legally) parking spot around my kids' school!).

But I saw the road to the kids' school (straight ahead) clear of cars... so instead of turned left to get home, I went straight... Closer to the intersection, I began to see more chaos: cars fighting to turn left, right, everywhere. Looked like the traffic light at that corner went down with the boomgate and train.

Since I was real gentle at heart (a polite way to imply that I was real chicken in driving a huge car in busy streets where there was no proper traffic lights on!), I promptly decided then and there, that I should try the first parking spot available, take the kids to their school, then leave the car there (until it was safer to drive home!).



Amazingly, my kids came to their school just in time for the Monday assembly! Hurrah...


On and on, the routine ceremony took place, anthem and all!

I walked back home, noticing that cars seemed to be "almost" empty on the streets around the troubled intersection. (A sign that the chaos of today Monday morning had truly gone?)...

Observing the streets a bit more closely, I decided to drive the car home. (The street where I parked, was the same one where I had witnessed a "young female" car buglar operating her business. It was truly a frightening experience to me, witnessing such an act of vandalising, thiefing in public, during daylight.... Today, I saw signs of car glass window shattered on the ground, at a spot where most drivers used to make a U turn. Who knew then if it was another act of vandalising, thiefing, or just an accident while the driver tried to turn his/her car? I doubted the last theory! Thus, it would be perhaps safer just to park our precious "old bomb" at our driveway?).

The kids had agreed to walk home with mom later, so the car could rest there in our driveway until tomorrow morning. But please God, don't let the trains broke down during peak hours, especially at areas that roads/streets were being blocked everywhere for servicing!

(Did I mention anywhere, that they were blocking parts of the busy street in front of my kids' school right now too, (for road servicing)? Ghosh... they just did it a few weeks ago, now they did it again... and they always worked during peak hours! Why couldn't they do it during night time? or at middle of the day? Ah, perhaps I could guess:

- the bosses refused to pay extra for workers at overtime rate!
- It was too cold to work at night (bad condition for road works?)
- workers refused to work odd hours?)


(Shrug!)