Four Million Irritations

I was very happy to see on the TV news yesterday that life for office workers in Suntec seems completely unchanged and as marvellous as ever, although an optical illusion (something to do with our aging projection TV) seemed to make the news presenter's nose appear to grow slightly longer as she joyously gave us this great news.

Of course I must be the only one who is terribly inconvenienced by all the razor-topped metal skirting and plastic cones everywhere. Either that, or the 2 happy people working in Suntec who got interviewed in the news yesterday actually started their journeys at 7 am. The sky did look rather blanchy in the news feature. Probably the aging TV again.

This morning I contributed to the 4 million smiles as I was asked by a policeman to take a special trip through Marina shopping centre from Raffles Link and then down through Millenia Walk and Times Square just to get to the office. My office suit radiated heat as I stepped around the still obtrusive Communique sign to get into the lift. God help us if there is a fire and there's a bunch of bodies piled up behind that Goddamn COMMUNIQUE sign for the firemen to bag.

At lunch I walked through the virtually empty shops in Suntec and saw plenty of virtually empty smiles. In one particular shop, 3 salespeople stood around in their beautiful white uniforms smiling at nobody in particular since the shop was completely devoid of customers. A hairdressing salon that is usually full at lunch hour had 3 hairdressers sitting inside, catching up on the news. I got the full attention of the girl at the photo shop. She was extremely grateful for my patronage. I asked for a discount. She smiled and said "You already paid 2 weeks ago."

I looked around for someone IMF-looking to smile at. Unfortunately, I couldn't see anyone remotely governor. Or delegate. Just a lot of policemen. For once, the policemen outnumber the shoppers. And the po po are not shopping.

Isn't it ironic. With the barricades and the road blocks and the blocking off of pedestrian walkways, the only regular people who will get to smile at the IMF delegates in person are the police. And the Ghurkas. And these people can't be smiling on duty, it's just not proper. The rest of us mere citizens are just like ants skirting a picnic table whilst being shooed off. Even if I was smiling in the direction of the Convention Centre, I'm too far away for the people inside to see me. Which is probably why the "4 MILLION SMILES" banner has got all them smiley photos on it. That's probably the closest that any of us smiley people are going to get.

It feels like we're working on the moon, to paraphrase Sting. No one outside of Suntec can have lunch with me - our friendship would not survive the long walk and the irritating multiple detours. And that stupid feeder bus that the news reader happily proclaimed "ARRIVES EVERY FIVE MINUTES!" - that must be during the non-peak hours only. I waited almost 20 minutes for that damn bus just yesterday and I'm almost completely certain I'll have the pleasure of doing so later today.

This is a long post but it really does get extra irritating to go through this nonsense and then have the news tell us that everything is really really great, despite our own personal experience. It's like me telling The Son that his saltless, MSG-less, sugar-less, spice-less porridge is YUMMY as I shove another spoonful into his mouth.