No Food or Drink Allowed - Nancy Duma

Image: www.victorystore.com

"NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED", so says the announcement sticker stuck on a busway I rode in years ago. I wondered, why people are not allowed to drink or to eat on ride? Most of the passengers are adults. They surely can keep the bus clean.

See, I'm so right. Do ride in a busway. Yes, it's crowded, but you won't see any food crumbles, orange peelings, empty plastick cans and bottles. I can proudly declare that we, busway passengers, are good at keeping the bus environment clean.

Since a couple of months I go home by other kinds of bus. They are the 106 and the 157. The first is an air-conditioned bus. In traffic jammed moments, we can simply close our eyes and dream away. On the contrary, the latter is not air-conditioned and very crowded. You don't have to go to a sauna. The heat is free. But both do have a similarity. You don't see any stickers on their wall, saying, "NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED".

One day, unlucky me had to stand along the way home in the 106. There I saw a young, good-looking woman sitting on her place. She was dressed neatly, wearing a shiny bracelet and a necklace. Her hair, lips, eyelids, cheeks, nails ...everything is perfect. She is definitely a neat woman.

After a while, the woman took a magazine out of her bag. A health-magazine that was still covered with cling film. Then, I saw her beautiful fingers tore the wrapping and .... tada... throw it to the floor! After that, she began to read as if nothing had happened.

Some days after, I went home by the 157 bus. I sat beside a woman. The woman munched buah salak and .... tada.... throw away its kernel to the floor unhesitatingly.

On another way home, still by the 157 bus, again I sat beside a woman. That woman opened her bag. There I saw an empty box. But she didn't take the box out, but an orange. She began to peel the orange and ate piece by piece of that juicy fruit. Astonishingly, she didn't put the peelings and the cores in her box. Instead, she throw them away ... tada ... to the floor! This time I felt so angry that I couldn't shut my mouth.
"You do have an empty box in your bag, do you?! Why didn't you put the peelings and the cores in it?!"

Like a zombie, the woman acted like nothing happened.

No wonder the 157 buses are like garbage wagons. You can see piles of trashes here and there. If only I had a choice, I would gladly go home by other means of transportation. 

Now I understand the necessity of that prohibiton sticker. The absence of the sticker causes disaster. We treat our environment carelessly. Physically we are grown-ups. But mentally we are similar to little children who must be supervised or prohibited to be able to do something good and right, even for our own sake.