Woah, what was that!? 2011, was that you whizzing by just now? Three hundred and sixty five days gone in 60 seconds. We barely knew you, fella. Everything moves so fast in Singapore—rents, taxi fares, the door policy at Avalon. Fast, fast, fast. Everyone and everything on speed. Everyone and everything on speed except that goddamn SMRT—man, what a ride! Now we’re not calling for the lady’s head on a stick or anything radical like that—let’s be reasonable about this—but we’ve got to tell you just how awful it was down there, just awful. There we were headed to Orchard Road to max out our credit card for our yearly Christmas shop, happily playing the new Birdday Party update of Angry Birds, and then before you know it our ride’s broken down mid-track like a Transformer at Resorts World Sentosa. Bsssssshhhhhhoooooooooooom. Power down. Nothing. Dead. It was hell, let us tell you. Kids wailing, aunties complaining, uncles blaming the powers that be. Everyone just bitchin’ and moanin’, bitchin’ and moanin’—we hadn’t seen that much discontent since the general election. Five hundred swearing folk and 1,000 sweating armpits—man, that was a durian stink bomb bigger than the Esplanade; we almost died. By the time the SMRT rescue crew arrived hours later to dig us out (you should have seen them coming up the tunnel like the pack from Reservoir Dogs, what a sight), we were pickled. Never did make it to Orchard, but we did make it to Hong Lim Park for the rally. Flew the flag of discontent we did. Their outage became our outrage. Signed the online petition, too. Registered our disfavor with our mouse. But we’re not calling for an Occupy SMRT—no, sir. Seven hours is quite enough, thanks. Besides we’re late for our social fitness class.
