slowmo

Have you ever watched a stranger do something so leisurely and painfully slow that you wished you could just shove him away and do it yourself? Actions like untangling the balled-up wire of his earphones, opening a sealed package, assembling some gadgets... I have. All the time.

Just an hour ago, while I was on the train home, one fella did that exact thing to me. He got me really peeved and exasperated. He plonked himself down right opposite me and started removing a pack of something from his waistpouch. "Hmm.. I wonder what's in that plastic bag." I thought to myself. So it was a brand new Nokia headset, all fresh and white. My agony then began.

Gently, he removed the pack from the plastic bag.
"Open it! Open it!" My fingers were screaming.
Instead of listening to my fingers, he turned to the back of the pack and browsed through some wordings or whatever. I can't even tell if there were instructions on it. Nevermind nevermind, I told myself. Maybe it's a gift for someone and he's going to wrap it up nicely at home. Wrong. He turned it right back and started peeling at the plastic cover.
"Go! Go! Go!" My fingers screamed again.
He tugged delicately at the plastic cover, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief when he finally managed to separate the top part of the plastic cover from the cardboard backing. Now it's time to take the headset out and catch a whiff of the new plastic-ky smell.

He continued detaching the plastic cover until three-quarter of it is out. Why?! !!You really can pull the damn thing out from the top you know!! Apparently he doesn't understand that fact. Maybe his fingers are too fat. Maybe he had a bad experience with things coming out from the top. Maybe.

Finally, he took the white headset out. Phew!
What is to come next? What? What?!

I swear it took him the time of 2 stations to undo the metal fasteners on the wires, then disentangle the wire which he had unknowingly entangled. Sigh.
"I will not look at him anymore. C'mon! Close your eyes and go to sleep." I told myself. As hard as I tried, my eyelids refused to co-operate. They started fluttering. And before I know it, I was staring at him again.

It took him another few stops to finally get the headset plugged nicely into the handphone. By then I was almost out of breath because I had unconsciously held it while he pushed the plug thingy in. Plus my head was tilted to the left because I was trying to mentally stimulate the plug to align to the handphone. It's a Jedi thing I guess.

After forever, he got everything done, tuned to whatever station he likes, fitted the handphone snugly back into the liitle compartment of his waistpouch and started bobbing his head to the tune. The time the whole process took spanned from Orchard Station to Yishun Station.

I have an interesting little life.