I HATE TVMobile.Its supporters seem to think it's the best thing ever.

BT FILE PICTURE

People spend up to an hour commuting to work. We are zombies (usually) during the time. Ergo, we spend $X worth of bus fare to have subliminal advertising messages planted in our heads. Score!

Well, I happen to like my zombie time on the bus.

I get off the MRT train, latest library book in hand, lost in a Discworld or a galaxy far far away and wander in a happy daze to the bus stop.

Hum of traffic around me. Vroom. Dust. Heat.

Then the bus arrives and I get on. Beep. Doors close and the noise settles into a low hum. I get to a corner, nose still deep in the book of the week.

Then someone asks me a question. I look around. Eh, who's that? Didn't realise fellow zombies could talk. Then I realise that there are voices in the air. Is that you, God?

Then I notice the small, unobtrusive screen near the exit.

TVMobile, we meet again.

So for the rest of the journey, I get to deal with this niggling voice in my ear. The volume of the TV is set precisely at the level where it is loud enough to irritate you, but soft enough so that you can't make out exactly what they are saying.

You know when you sit next to some teen who is busy deafening himself with some tunes on his iPod and you can hear the music beat? Yeah, that kind of irritating.

But hey, it's a good use of time, you say. People get to catch up on Chakia and Sneakers and other MediaCorp gems that they missed on weeknights.

Dude, there is a reason why I missed those shows. They suck.

(With apologies to my colleague and fellow columnist who used to produce/write/direct these shows. Please don't set fire to my desk).

So now I get the pleasure of watching said sucky shows... at a volume that infuriates me.

At least I don't have to deal with this dilemma of those who do enjoy the 30-minute time-fillers-between-subliminal-ads:

What would you do if you realise that your stop is coming up, but you just had to find out exactly where KF Seetoh was when he was tucking into that divine rojak?

Get off and be forever doomed to soggy youtiao and slimy cucumbers? Or stay and walk 15 minutes to work?

Anyway, I don't have that problem. I always get off at the right stop.

Bliss

Then one day, I get on a bus and for some strange reason, I'm filled with a sense of bliss.

It's one of those new SBS Scania single-deck buses. You know, the ones that is wheelchair-, pram- and other-wheeled conveyances-friendly (up to the point that they roll over your toe).

The air inside is sweeter, the people are smiling, and I swear I saw flowers blooming behind the bus where the tyres meet the road.

Then I realised the real difference. There isn't a TVMobile on the bus!

There is a God after all. Let there be zombies.

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