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I told off an elderly uncle sitting behind me on the bus en route to work yesterday morning.

The latter had been coughing violently for several minutes, directly aimed at the back of my head. I could feel the force of the wind at my hair, and the latter made no move to block the flow of whatever grisley grimey germs that were flying out like little invisible projectiles from his mouth.

The coughing stopped for a few seconds, and I thought okay, perhaps it’ll come to an end here.

Then, he started again.

Enough was enough.

So I spun around. “If you need to cough, please at least cover your mouth. Thank you,” I told him curtly before spinning back to face the front.

The coughing stopped instantly, and any subsequent coughs became muffled.

Mission accomplished.

I happened to be sharing about my day with my mum later in the evening and the above story was brought up. Upon hearing that I had actually been telling people off on the bus, my mum’s expression changed into a look of pure horror.

“How can you do that? Next time don’t do that! Some people will get violent and will punch you, you know?” My mum exclaimed.

“Well. If they even lay a finger on me, it simply shows their lack of civilized behaviour, aye?” I responded.

“No point getting yourself injured what!” Mum tutted.

“I’ll risk it. Better than having all sorts of germs crawling around in my hair. And if I didn’t bother to tell him off, I wouldn’t know how long more would the coughing have gone on.” I reasoned. Gee, if I hadn’t – I think I’d have gotten a free hair wash during that bus ride.

“Next time, be more tactful lah!” Mum advised after a moment of silence.

“Tactful? TACTFUL?!” I exploded. “Was I not tactful enough? I even thanked him!”

“If I decided to not bother with being tactful, I would have screamed something like ‘CAN YOU STOP FUCKING COUGHING AT THE BACK OF MY HEAD?!’ which I REALLY felt like doing at that moment!”

That was when Mum burst into peals of laughter.

“Okay, okay, you’ve got a point.”

With that, ladies and gentlemen. I shall leave you with a reminder that should you ever leave the house with flu-like symptoms, please please please cover your nose and mouths with a tissue should you need to err … expel anything. Not because of any fear of meeting people like me, but because it’s basic civic-mindedness. Kthxbai!

I met an autistic boy today.

He was one of the helpers at the craft store I went to this afternoon. A cozy family business, that craft store was. I was really glad that the family business somehow allowed him to be part of the crew so that he gets to mingle with and meet new people.

The expression on his face when I approached him for help in the store was … hard to describe.

A mixture of joy and confusion perhaps. Joy towards how I approached him and spoke to him like a normal person, but confusion because he had no idea how to help me. His face was initially all aglow, before it was shrouded in bewilderment and he finally, gestured towards another lady to assist me.

Later on, he had taken to following me around the store.

I was looking for ribbons, and he lingered around in the nearby vicinity as I pored through the shelves and shelves of ribbon reels. It was clear that he could communicate, just that he didn’t know how. Occasionally, I’d pick up a roll of ribbon and go “hmm,” “too narrow”, “too wide” or “too expensive”, and I can hear all sorts of murmuring and squeaking noises coming from his general direction.

It was like we were having a conversation, only with both parties speaking in different languages … but still understood each other.

There was one point where I jokingly lamented about how the ribbons here were sold in reels and not per metre and he giggled along with me.

Later on, I reached for a tri-coloured (red, blue and white) ribbon reel and the murmurs and squeaks from the boy became louder. I looked up at him, and he pointed to the ribbon reel and gestured to his neck in a roundabout motion in response.

“Ah, this one is for medals!” says I.

And the boy began nodding wildly, squeaking and murmuring his approval.

The boy shadowed me around the store until I was ready to checkout. At that time, I stood patiently by the counter, waiting for one of the ladies in charge to finish whatever she was doing so that she could ring up my purchases.

The boy didn’t let me wait, though. He gestured/squeaked/murmured loudly for the attention of another storekeeper to come assist me and I was all ready to go in a matter of a couple of minutes.

I could have sworn that he said “bye” when I left the shop.