Jeepney Jaunts

I had another knee-shaking jeepney ride on my way home today. You know, that long-lasting moment where only a half of your butt is sitting on the long, canvassed seat of the jeep, and as the jeep screeches to a stop you slide 'out' further that you now have merely a fourth of your butt clinging on to dear life. This is one of those situations that I keep on swearing not to let myself experience again, but beyond any explanation I don't know why it still happens to me.

It all started at the jeepney terminal in front of Citibank (southbound) with the toothless barker who told me 'Sige mam, meron pa yan!'. Personal experience tells me that 99.9% of the time when they said that, it really means there's no room left. The reason why I still climbed inside the 7-seater (7 on both sides) jeep, again, is beyond any explanation... Hayy, ok let me digress a bit and attempt to explain: Maybe I've completely forgotten about all the past knee-shaking experiences? Nyek. Or maybe there are things I want to do/try again no matter how bad the experience seems. Crazy.

Enough digressing. So now as I walked hunchback looking for two persons to part like the Red Sea and let me sit between them, I found a small gap and thought that I could still sit comfortably since I'm just wafer thin. The moment my butt (not the whole butt) touched down, I knew instantly this is gonna be one hell of a ride. And I remembered instantly those other knee-shaking experiences! Hah! O-M-G. To add to my excruciating almost-squatting position, traffic's heavy all the way until the first U-turn slot along C-5. So I had to endure this a little longer if the jeep doesn't unload until before Rosario, which is usually the first place where passengers alight.

What's even more frustrating is the fact that all are men seated at that side of the jeep, 'cept of course me and another one. In detail, the seating position is (starting nearest the driver): a woman, her boyfriend, me, fatso 1, fatso 2, not-so-fatso 1, and not-so-fatso 2. I said before it's a 7-seater, right? Yes, there's 7 of us, but fatso 1 and fatso 2 unfortunately defied the seating capacity. Going back to the point of my frustration, fatso 1 and the gay boyfriend didn't even slightly move out a little so I could just squeeze myself inside. For those who don't ride a jeep, you might already find it hard to understand what I'm talking about, so kindly ask others to 'show' you how this should look like. Sorry, but the subtitle of my blog says I struggle writing in english, so there.

Unfortunately, gay bf and fatso 1 maybe are both too gay to pretend to be gentleman enough. I feel the same for fatso 2, not-so-fatso 1, and not-so-fatso 2. But! There's a little luck left in me and it's all spent wisely when not-so-fatso 2 alighted near the overpass (in front of HTMT - a call center slash BPO). Aaaahhhh. Sweaty me quietly slided to comfort, and silently glared at fatso 2 and gay bf. Ooohh my knees are all wobbly from squatting I can barely walk straight towards the tryke terminal.

As I contemplate on this, I remembered an officemate who once wrote in his user wiki page (in the office): Ano ang mas mahirap, ang umupo sa jeep na waluhan at pang-syam ka? O ang magpanggap na hindi natatawa sa usapan nila Nicole Ayala at Kris Tsuper?. Something like that. Hmph! E ano pa nga ba? :D