Those irritating little things

From stinky public toilets and giant potholes to unnecessary censorship and heavy school bags, Fa relates the many things in Malaysia that tick her off.

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People who drag their slippers when they walk.

People who chew with their mouth open.

People who fart in elevators.

These are among the things that irritate me.

Yup, I get annoyed and irritated pretty easily. But I agree – how a person chooses to walk, eat or conduct themselves is entirely a matter of personal preference.

I mean, as much as I have the right to get irritated, I cannot expect another individual to hold their farts or shut their mouths in my presence. That would be politically incorrect.

However, when things begin to affect a larger number of people, society should not be forced to put up with such situations.

Lately I have discovered more things that irritate the hell out of me. And they are all caused by lazy government officials. I shall list down some of them here. Let’s see if they irritate you too.

Road tax stickers

Last week I renewed my road tax and had to remove my old road tax from the windscreen – such a pain, I tell you! Seriously who invented the road tax sticker? What was wrong with the old design anyway? If the road tax sticker is something you change once in a blue moon, I might not be so irritated but for something you change every year, I just cannot understand why it needs to have its own bellady adhesive which sticks to the windscreen and is not easily removed without leaving ugly stains! Urgggghhhh.

Lousy road signs

How many times have you tried driving without Waze or GPS – only solely depending on road signs? Lemme tell you – it is a pain. OMG! Some sign boards give lousy directions – they are either placed too far away from the actual turn-off or right next to it. Worse still, some locations tend to disappear altogether from signboards all of a sudden, forcing you to pull over as you scratch your head and wonder where the heck you are!

Parking machines not accepting new coins

It has been about two years now since the new coins were introduced in Malaysia. Sadly, in some places, parking machine still don’t accept these. I experienced this at Selayang which comes under the Majlis Perbandaran Selayang. I wonder what the problem is – if the old machines don’t accept the new coins, change the machines lah! So mah fan!

Dirty public tiolets

Yes, yes, there have been improvements in the quality of public toilets in our country but I feel it is still unsatisfactory. Some public toilets still stink of urine, the rubber hose is almost always lying on a wet floor, and there is usually no toilet paper or soap in sight. It is funny how we have world class airports and skyscrapers but are still struggling with filty public toilets.

Heavy school bags

One thing that has been irritating me for donkey years is watching school children carrying huge and heavy bags to school. Our minister proudly claimed our education system was world class but they can’t seem to get a handle on tiny tots lugging heavy “luggage” to school?

Unnecessary censorship

Don’t you get annoyed when you listen to a nice song on the radio only to have parts of the lyrics chopped off? I mean, what is wrong with the word ‘sex’, ‘ass’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘gay’? And don’t get me started on censored scenes at the movies. Honestly I find this ridiculous especially when local films with bedroom scenes involving Muslim actors are made available for all to see.

There are just so many other things that irritate me, including open burning, vandalism, smoking in public places, stray animals, insufficient parking spaces, faulty traffic lights, litterbugs, potholes, clogged drains, dirty rivers, lack of garbage bins and more.

These situations are caused by a lack of planning, execution and enforcement from the respective government departments. Perhaps if once in a while the ministers, officials and MPs made an effort to step out of their air-conditioned offices to turun padang, these situations could be managed better.

Mind you, good governance is not merely about policy making. Once in a while, please do walk among the ordinary folk to see for yourselves how your policies are affecting those at the grassroots level.

Meanwhile, as I wait for changes to take place (if ever they do), I shall continue getting irritated every day.