Dammed Reserved Seatings

Disclaimer: this is a rant entry. Navigate away from this page NOW if you are not comfortable with reading about how the world is an unfair place to be right now.

Blame it on insurgent hormones but an incident happened this morning that left me seething with anger and completely ruined a perfectly good working day.

I was on the way to work in the MRT this morning and happened to snag a Reserved seat (yes, I checked that there were no elderly, preggies, physically disabled or people with munchkins around before sitting down). Less than 2 stations after I sat down, along came an elderly gentleman (probably in his late fifties or early sixties) who said ‘Excuse Me?’ and looked at me expectantly, indicating that I should give up my seat to him.

Now, I don’t think I belong to that 90% of MRT commuters who pretend to sleep or fiddle with their electronic gadgets in order to avoid giving up their seats to folks who need them more. But given my condition right now, I do feel I am as entitled to have a Reserved seat as other ‘needy’ people. At 17 weeks, my tummy merely looks like I have over-indulged at a buffet spread, instead of outright pregnant. Comments have been made that I don’t look pregnant at all; others have been made that I should be grateful I do not have to lug around a heavy stomach all the time. In fact, I will be wondering about the new life waiting to come out in mid-May 2014 if she (nothing between the legs! So the good doctor says…) hadn’t shown up in ultra-sound scans.

Anyway, back to my rant. So this uncle was looking at me and expecting to sit down. I didn’t want to cause a scene as he was nice enough to ask politely and I was trying to avoid being the next Stomp/Facebook/Youtube star for ‘Woman Creates A Scene & Refused To Give Up Reserved Seat To Ah Pek’. Heaving an inward sigh of resignation, I stood up and the elderly gentleman happily settled down in his seat, unaware of the breathless, light-headed/giddy effects that he has caused for the lady who had given up her seat.

What made me so mad was because today’s incident was the second time this has happened. Last month, I had the ‘misfortune’ of snagging a reserved seat and having this same uncle come into the same MRT carriage as me. Same shit happened and I gave up my seat for him as well then. The first time it happened, I wrote it off as an amusing incident to be shared with people in the know but not this time. The uncle is absolutely within his rights to ask to sit in the reserved seat under normal circumstances and nice enough to ask politely for it; but I am P-R-E-G-N-A-N-T! Does having a tummy that doesn’t show disqualify you from sitting down when you need to? Is it my fault that my tummy doesn’t show?? Who can I blame if I faint on the train from the lack of air and giddiness??

To top off a crappy train-ride, I was standing in front of another reserved seat beside another man in his early/mid-fifties after giving up my seat. When the train entered Dhobby Ghaut which was an interchange station, the reserved seat in front of me was vacated and the gentleman beside me gave me an enquiring look to see if I was going to sit down. For the second time in 30 minutes, I felt like I was being set up for a booby trap. The man in question is definitely of a certain ‘vintage’; can I in all good conscience sit down when there is another person out there who, on the surface, appears to need the seat more than I do? Dammed if I do and dammed if I don’t - the man got his seat. =(