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20 March 2012

The Jeepney Royalty

Riding the Public Utility Jeeps (PUJ) or jeeps has been a part of my daily life. I would ride on it every single day whenever I travel. Of course there are other vehicles that I would ride as well but jeeps have been the most frequent. It is never comfortable and I wouldn’t want to actually ride on it, given the chance. It’s hot during summer, wet during the rainy days, smoke would enter the “always open” windows, and the seating is horrible especially when the driver squeezes in the maximum number of passenger even if some of the already seated are overweight, which consumes extra space. But I don’t have a choice. Financial difficulties have declared my fate and I had to learn to love the jeeps. I still don’t.

A typical Philippine Jeepney
Photo courtesy of aboutph.com

What even irritates me when riding the jeeps are the “too lazy” and “too social climbing” yet disgusting passengers who consider themselves the dames and knights of the jeeps who wouldn’t want to pass on the payments (fares) made by other passengers, or worse, even their own payments!

Here’s the thing. Jeeps are long vehicles of which the interior is made of two long bench on the left and right and when you enter, you will not be facing the front of the jeep when you sit but rather the side where you will meet the eyes of your co-passengers (Hard to explain huh?! See the picture below!). So when you pay, you have two choices (unless you are alone). One is to walk (or crawl using your butt) and go near the driver and hand him your payment, or ask someone ahead of you (meaning, others who are nearer to the driver) to hand your payment to the driver for you. This last one is being abused so annoyingly.

Photo courtesy of bigflax.com

Photo courtesy of journals.worldnomads.com

Here’s what I hate. In my case, if there are just few people inside the jeep ahead of me, I would just walk to get near the driver to hand my payment. Sometimes I would even sit at the driver’s back for the rest of the travel. What I hate about other people, let’s call them the LAZY MASS, is that when they board the jeep, they would sit at the farthest end of the jeep just so they could prevent handing over the payment of the others. And even worse, they would wait for someone to board the jeep so that someone would hand over his payment too! Talk about ULTIMATE LAZINESS! What’s equally funny and annoying is that I would observe that most of the passengers would squeeze themselves on the farther part of the jeep, and when a very unlucky person decides to go near the driver to “hand his own fare (as no one would like to do him a favor),” he will be doomed! As all of the passengers will ask him to hand over their payments.

 Photo courtesy of christianwildernesspress.net

Photo couretsy of filipinolifeinpictures.wordpress.com

Not only that. I also hate the people who are ahead of me (I repeat, these are passengers who are near the drivers) who would never ever pass the payment to the driver. They are the social climbing, trying to be ELITE ones who don’t want to touch the money of others due to FEAR of SARS, Swine Flu, Anthrax, and any other diseases that’s giving them the paranoia.

Below are the most notorious of all the tactics of the “elites”.

1.) Pretend that you are asleep. To make it more effective, your head should be swaying back and forth or even sideways to the point that you would accidentally lean on your seatmate. Drooling is the most effective. Otherwise the lazy mass would know you are just faking it and they will curse you in their minds.
2.) Listen to a very loud music so they know you just don’t hear them. To make it more dramatic, wear supersized headphones. To make it even more award-winning, put the volume to the maximum so they would hear Katy Perry’s Fireworks being played. Then they might believe you. Otherwise, they will curse you in their minds for IGNORING them.
3.) Wear a stern face so the lazy mass would know who they are dealing with. An ELITE in a jeep. And they would be intimated. Just make sure you are intimidating. Otherwise you will just be inviting trouble especially from the elders of the lazy mass.
4.) IGNORE the request to hand over the payment the best that you can. Be sure to withstand all the criticisms, badmouthing, and anger of the lazy mass on the farther side of the jeep. Ignorance is not acceptable to the lazy mass but some “elite” could get away with it, especially women and old (who have not learned their etiquette) people.

 Photo courtesy of filipinolifeinpictures.blogspot.com

Photo courtesy of wn.com

There, if you are planning to be the bad guy, be the lazy mass or the elite, you may use the above advice. But if you’re like me who believes it is our social responsibility and obligation to do the favor of handing over the payments of the lazy people of this country, you will do the otherwise. And pray. Chause!

Yeeha! ;D



3 comments:

  1. One thing that seems to make me angry everyday are lazy jeepney passengers. they always sit in the very back so they dont have to go up to the driver and give their payment. some of them even pay with 100s, thus making it more difficult on everyone to transfer the change. they also make it harder for other passengers to enter the jeepney through the back.

    come on lazy people! it does not take that much effort to just go up to the driver and hand them your payment.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi anonymous! Thanks for dropping by. We all hate them. I have actually experienced the situation you cited. It's annoying really. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. another thing that makes me mad on a jeepney are those that tell the jeepney driver to stop literally one second after being stopped.

    somebody gets down and then when the jeepney driver starts to go, another passenger says "stop".

    are you seriously that lazy to walk literally two more feet and get out a little bit earlier?

    ReplyDelete