The latest induction into the Handbag Hall of Shame: Guy seen in LT32 carrying girl’s PINK shoulder bag!

Welcome to the Hall of Shame, you pussy-whipped loser. Did your balls never descend, or did she cut them off for you?

The details: Girl wearing tank top and shorts walks into LT in front of a guy who, in addition to carrying his own backpack, is also carrying a pink shoulder bag on his right arm. So now we know that it’s not his bag, since there is no reason a guy needs to carry 2 bags. We also know he’s a henpecked homey cos he’s actually wearing the bag, not holding it at arm’s length as though desperate to dissociate it from himself.

The girl is not physically impaired in any way, so there is no reason she can’t carry her own bag. Look, even double amputees would be able to carry their own stuff, and she has all her limbs. (Though she’s apparently missing a brain.)

She prances happily into her seat, while her pack animal follows behind. She even has the audacity to sit beside friends, as though eager to show off how well-trained he is!

Oh the shame! It wasn’t enough that he had to carry her girly pink bag, he even had to walk 3 steps behind her! What madness is this? Why, oh why would anyone do that to a guy, much less a guy whom one is supposed to like, if not love? Did he lose a bet? Are they engaging in a certain form of paraphilia? Is he being punished for some transgression?

Because there is no reason otherwise, for a guy to carry, nay, wear his girl’s bag.

Don’t even give me that lame “it’s heavy” excuse. Tell her to dump all that rubbish out of her bag. Unless the guy’s stuff is inside, making it heavy, there’s no reason for you to carry the burden of her poor handbag organisation skills.

Yes, maybe some guys are gentlemen and will help their girls with their bags. No, I’m not jealous. I’m surrounded by gentlemen. However, I also believe in acting like a lady. Ladies don’t play damsel-in-distress. That’s not ladylike. It’s infantile.

And ladies know when to give their man the respect he deserves, instead of treating him like a combination slave/pack animal/maid/cash machine/driver. You don’t get respect unless you give respect, yo.

In Singapore, there is a curious phenomenon to be found in food courts. It is called the Dish Collector. Okay I actually have no idea what they’re actually called, but they’re the people who clear the tables of the dirty dishes after the patron(s) have left.

I always feel a bit strange about just getting up and walking away after enjoying my meal. Maybe it’s because I was raised to take my plate to the sink, even though we had someone else to wash the dishes after that. Or perhaps it’s the implicit assumption that “someone will clean up after me”.

In KL we have something similar as well, but usually it’s the stallholders themselves who clean up only their own dishes, rather than someone who’s paid explicitly to collect dishes, no matter which stall they came from.

Personally, I think this practice of not clearing up after ourselves breeds a sense of entitlement. Or rather, inflates it. I remember that I used to be fond of clearing the tray when I ate at McDonald’s. That was when I was 5. I’d take the tray, laden with fry boxes and burger wrappers, and tilt the rubbish into the bin, then put the tray on top. I don’t know why or when I stopped. I tried it again recently, but it didn’t work very well because the bin was full. Bah.

A rather humourous justification given for all the Dish Collectors at food courts is that it provides them with some form of employment. I do suppose this is true, to some extent, and far be it from me to rob someone of a living wage, but it’s not exactly something one aspires to be, is it?

And besides, is it REALLY necessary to have people clearing the tables? The NUS Arts canteen doesn’t think so. The practice there is that patrons must take their trays and dishes to a centralised collection point for washing. In fact, we are reminded to do so by small plastic signs on each tabletop. (The Nanny state strikes again.) It’s actually more efficient this way, because at peak hour, you don’t want to spend time waiting for someone to clear the table before you can sit down. Also, it’s not going to hurt intelligent, able-bodied undergraduates and academics to clear their tables, now is it? It’s good to remind them that having brains doesn’t mean that the world has to serve your every whim.

In the end, I think it boils down to the fact that this practice of having someone clear your dishes is a manifestation of a sense of entitlement carried too far. And it’s not good for civic consciousness, because it breeds a mindset of “someone else will clean that up”. The Someone Else Syndrome permeates through enough of society as it is. Do we need it to extend to such a basic activity as eating as well?

And in the interest of full disclosure, I was eating at Lau Pa Sat. Unfortunately, there were no bins around for me to put my dirty dish in, hence protecting the livelihood of Dish Collectors. There were, however, tissue peddlers, one of whom was a little boy asking me, “Jie Jie, ni yao tissue ma?” (Big Sis, do you want tissue?)

Lau Pa Sat never used to be like this.

p/s: I am aware that there are people working as busboys and busgirls in restaurants. That I can understand. You pay lots of money to dine at a proper restaurant, of course you shouldn’t have to clear your own table. But a food court is a very everyday thing for most of us, so the practice is more likely to lead to Someone Else Syndrome.