While Waiting for School Bus

I was waiting for WY's schoolbus just now. And it turned out to be a 40-minute wait.

It was raining cats and dogs. The sight of the splashing rain suddenly jolted my memory, and a scene flashed across my mind.

When I was in P5 and HA in P3, Mother arranged for us to take the school bus to and from school. We would get ourselves ready for school and at about 12:15pm, HA and I would stroll to the big rain tree just outside B120 to wait for the school bus. There wasn't any PIE then.

On days when it rained, 叔叔 would drive in to pick us up. We would wait at our void deck (just like I was waiting for WY just now). I would carry my umbrella and shelter HA on our way up to the school bus. Inevitably, I would get one shoulder wet, but we managed anyway.

Then there were days when HA and I were a little late and somehow, by the time we got to the pick-up point under the rain tree, we had missed the bus. We would wait faithfully past 12:30pm, then I would 'discuss' with HA if we should just grab a cab to school. HA usually said ok, let's do it.

Then we would flag a taxi quickly, then jump right in. After telling the driver where our school was, HA and I would visually scan the entire interior of the taxi for things to identify the particular taxi by. We would check and note down mentally the registration no., the taxi driver's name if it was displayed (in those days, it was not a common practice that all taxi drivers' names were displayed for viewing by passengers) and any other 'unique' things about that vehicle - any broken mirror or torn seat cover etc.

Why did we do these? Well, we had at one time discussed and agreed that it would be important to note these details because in case the taxi driver turned out to be a crook or kidnapper of some kind and brought us to some unknown places, we would be able to provide such details to the police when we escaped! Logical, hor?!

(So, that's how I got into the habit of noting such particulars whenever I get in a taxi, which I still do even today.)

We paid for our ocassional taxi rides with the spare cash which I always carried with me for 应急 purposes. This came from part of the unused portion of my weekly allowance of about $3.

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I still want to write about retirement. But I will do a fresh one so it is not 'incorrect' or not suitable for posting. WIP.