Congratulations, It's A Girl

For those men who have never been on the MRT, you gotta know: THE FIRST TRAIN IS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS, WOMEN AND CHILDREN. I feel slightly Babylonian as I say that, but I can’t help it, that’s the law. So you guys out there, don’t even try, because there’s a guard on an elevated chariot-looking contraption there by the first train platform ready to verbally whip (or maybe even physically club) any man who dares cross the sacred train. And he means business – he’s pharaoh to the whole 20 feet of platform he guards. So men, beware.

The first train, or the girl train (sorry lolos and kiddies, you’re special people in a train that’s 98% female) is usually roomy. Coming from the horrible experience of having to squeeze into a morning train brimful of human carcasses, I can say that this is a relief. The men, I don’t pity. We coldhearted b*tches believe that men can fend for themselves, as the cavemen did in prehistoric times. But women, women are delicate beings. They need to be pampered, lavished, and thus be given their own train. And having your own sacred place makes you feel like the goddess Isis.

Ok, so maybe not so sacred. In the tradition of MRTs the train is still dingy, unstable, and hazardous. It’s still at the mercy of power shortages. Sometimes the aircon is low, and therefore you sweat. Otherwise, it’s pretty fine. The main purpose of the train is to provide public transport to people, not luxury. Luxury, you get from Rustan’s. But getting to one place to another without traffic, that’s the train.

And besides, the female train smells so much nicer than the homogenous trains. And that already adds so much pleasure to the train experience (or I’m just so inexorably tied to my olfactory nerves).

Female train-riders can still ride the other trains, but this I cannot understand. Once you’ve experienced the comfort of the girl train, how can you go back? I mean, it’s understandable how some girls can rush to the male trains because the train just arrived and it’s the nearest door to them once they’ve arrived on the platform and they are desperate to get on the train but the femme train’s just so far so they’d have to settle for another train (*breathe*), but not waiting for the girl train? It is, for me, unthinkable. The government is doing you a service, ladies, won’t you take advantage of these few rare privileges? Aside from the physical comfort, there’s a world of psychological ease in the girl train. Your sexual harassment red lights are minimized, if not completely gone. You feel more relaxed. It’s more comfortable, and there are higher chances for you to get a seat. Now you tell me: ain’t that nice?

Ok, it’s not all nice. Some fellow stranger b*tches stare at you like they have a vendetta. Some kids, their tiny-ness leaving them to toy around with the floor, associate feet with playthings and mercilessly step on them (paging, parents, your children, please. It’s a pain). Some oldies have as many bags are there were Jews killed in the Holocaust, and they take up legroom. And they take so slow to board the train they create traffic. But the senior citizens and kids, you understand, it’s age. But the b*tches? Hell.

And the girl train is a perpetual motion machine of gab. It’s always noisy. Some are marathoner gabbers, and they don’t stop talking. Gossip. Stories. Tall tales. Small talk. ANYTHING AT ALL. At times you hear stuff that you’re sure are supposed to be private, but just because it’s said so loudly you’re able to know stranger’s secret lives. Oh well. It’s not shamelessness. It’s just volume.

Still, I love the girl train. I don’t have to wait too long because there’s always enough space, I don’t worry about getting felt up by some random maniac. Whoever made this rule deserves a huge hug and a shower of kisses by all the femmes boarding the girl train. And the kiddies. And the grandmas. And grandpas.