Bad night.
Yesterday I thought I had what was the beginning of a sore throat when a portion of my throat was sore.
It got worse by nightfall, but not because it had spread.
Instead the pain just became more acute whenever I swallow. I've now come to the conclusion that I have some kind of acne/ulcer in my throat, somewhere around the back of my jaw.
The pain kept me awake but not completely. Could go back to sleep when I got sleepy enough.
But that wasn't all.
Some asshole called me at 4 and 5am this morning. Same number.
60301
I have no idea what kind of number it is.
Initially my family guessed it was a local number because "60" is one of the many combinations that local numbers begin.
But Google gave me a different answer.
Apparently people are getting calls from this number even in Malaysia, so it's definitely not a Singaporean number.
It's actually a number for international calls.
So someone called me at those unholy hours probably to scam me.
Fuck!
So that woke me up and my throat kept me awake. TWICE!
I could barely keep my eyes open when my alarm rang for the third time this morning.
So today I encountered a cab driver who really believed in following rules.
I was at this almost empty taxi stand at Clementi Mall (went to duplicate office keys to have my own set instead of using my mum's all the time) and there was these 2 middle-aged ladies with this entire trolley of groceries.
Even with the help of their cab driver, it was taking quite some time. Moreover, there was this curb that prevented the taxis behind the first one from leaving. Thus I just stood there and waited.
Then another middle-aged lady came out of nowhere and tried to board the cab that I was supposed to take.
I saw it but didn't care because there were like 5-6 more taxis behind it.
But the driver simply refused to let her in and pointed at me. So I waved my hand to signal "no" and tried to use hand gestures to tell her to take it.
If she wanted to pay the extra fare for waiting another half a min for the two women in front, I'm fine with it. It's not like there's a shortage of cabs anyway.
So I walked up to her and told her it was okay to take it and that there were plenty of taxis for everyone, but she just told me what the driver said, something about me and queuing up, so I stopped talking, looked at the cab in front where they were almost done loading and just boarded my cab.
In the cab I said it should have been ok to let her in since there were so many more behind, but he replied that not everyone thinks that way.
I couldn't deny that.
Which is sad, yet... somewhat comforting that there are people who still follow the rules.
It's just that sometimes, it's alright to bend the rules, like in this case.
A lot of Singaporeans avoid tipping. Not all though. I know some people who tip 10-20% of the bill when they go to bars.
Yet the other day when I went to this Turkish restaurant with some of my friends, I was shocked at how hard they insisted on not tipping.
Except... the money was mine to give away.
You see, they had all paid me their portions of the bill while I used my $50 notes for the bill itself.
The change was about $3.50.
I didn't even want to take it and told my friends we could leave right after I handed the money in the bill holder.
Mainly it was because the waitress was nice enough to patiently explain to us each dish and recommended dishes we could share amongst ourselves. Another thing was that we took the restaurant's best table, the only one with a large square table and cushioned seats, and stayed longer than most of the other customers.
So an extra $3.50 was nothing.
But my friends insisted that I waited for the change.
Alright, so we waited. When the bill came, I just took the $2 note and receipt and closed it.
And they were like, "No, take the rest too!" but I couldn't make myself do it. It's just less than $2 in coins. I had about $7 worth of change in my wallet already.
In the end another guy took them and left the holder empty.
Justification?
We weren't earning a lot of money and we were already paying 7% GST (aka VAT in some countries).
I guess it could be subjective. Personally I tip when I like the service.
Also, apparently it's alright to tip when you pay by credit card by putting cash into the holder.
I don't think I'll be going back to the restaurant any time soon. That place was so full of tourists. Surely they must be used to getting a lot of tips.
UOB is offering 1% interest p.a. for fixed deposits with a minimum sum of just S$40k for 18 months! Only for this month!
Awesome!
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