illegal alien

Three short conversations of Mr. J, on a random weekend in a random city.¹

1. J at a random shopping centre, queing at the cashier to pay for a greeting card.
   Cashier: Next!
   J: I’d like this greeting Card. Can I use NETS?²
   Cashier: Yes, please!
   J starts to type in his PIN. Cashier fetches a plastic bag for the greeting card…
   J (shouting): No, no, I don’t need a bag!
2. J and two friends, E and T, in a car, visiting another friend who is recovering from a motorcycle accident. They brought above mentioned greeting card where they are now writing Psalm 23 to encourage the recovering friend.

   E: hot in here…
   T: Wanna on the Aircon?
   T turns on the car engine… a soothing stream of cold air starts to flow
   J (rather shocked): No, don’t turn on the engine!
   T: Why not?
   T turns the engine off again
   J: Because it pollutes the environment of course. Look, I know this is very singaporean³, but in Switzerland people even turn off their engine at red traffic lights.
   T: Doesn’t that cause even more pollution?
   J: There is a threshold of about 16 seconds actually, after that it’s ok.
   T: But it damages the engine!
   J: Not really… think about it, when you bring a car to service, what you exchange is the clutch and (ok I admit it) the sparks, but they are rather cheap.

3. J walking to the MRT station with a younger citizen C of the random city.
   J: So what are you doing now?
   C: I’m in secondary four.
   J: And afterward, what would you like to do?
   C: Lawyer sounds nice.
   J: Why?
   C: I heard the salary is good.
   J: And what else?
   C: Hmm…
   short pause
   C: it’s interesting.

Oh oh I’m an alien, an illegal alien
I’m a Swiss in Singapore…
Freely after Sting: Englishman in New York

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¹⁾This is a work of fiction. All characters are fictional. All incidents portrayed in this work are purely the fictional creation of the author.
²⁾Ok… that makes the city not so random anymore… maybe the incidents are not that fictional after all.
³⁾Allright… giving up ;-)