As a child I always wondered how the Care Bears could stare with their bulging bellies. You know, they scream “Care Bear Stare” and shoot colorful … err … stuff out of their tummies collectively. So maybe all the staring makes No Heart uncomfortable. It would make me uncomfortable, too, if hundreds of plush toys aimed their bellies at me and cried “Care Bear Stare” in unison.

Anyway, this post really has nothing to do with Care Bears.

Yesterday morning, an uncouth woman pushed me out of the bag inspection line at the MRT station. I was shocked, of course, since she actually had the gall to give me the evil eye when I tried to push back. It goes without saying that I got pissed.

Royally.

So what do I do? At first I seethe, because I lose sight of the barbarian on my way up to the platform. No sense dwelling on it, I think to myself, because I won’t be able to find her and extract revenge anyway.

But God loves me.

I got a seat inside the train and the brute was seated right across me. To channel Sheldon of the Big Bang Theory, this would be one of those circumstances that people unfamiliar with the law of large numbers would call a coincidence.

So then, lock in and engage in battle mode. It’s time for Psycho Stare™.

A little background. Psycho Stare™ was invented by my sister back in the 90s to combat leery men, tactless women and just stupid people in general. You don’t actually look the person in the eye, lest your target turn out to be some sort of hypnotist and the entire plan backfires on you. Instead, you find a spot on that person’s face and stare at it. I mean seriously, stare at it. Don’t ever take your eyes off the target area.

Now that person is bound to realize that someone is staring. When they find you staring (they think you’re actually looking them straight in the face because of the angles), they’ll start shifting uncomfortably and fidget like a trapped animal. Oh, the joy it brings never ends.

So I sat there and promptly launched the family’s patented Psycho Stare™. I chose her jaw and stared at it for five minutes. Soon enough, she realized that I’d been staring at her the whole time. She turned to the other side of the train, hoping to avoid my gaze. I caught her sneaking glances at me a few times to see whether or not I was still staring. Of course I was.

She started fidgeting and I stifled a laugh. I’m the psycho bitch around here, lady.

It helps when you intensify your stare in such a way that’ll make them even more uncomfortable. You want to squint your eyes a bit, as if you’re thinking of something. Act like you’re looking for the image of Mother Teresa in her constellation of pimples or something. That’ll drive your target absolutely nuts.

The poor woman never even knew what hit her. She was fidgeting in her seat and shifting her eyes this way and that for the entire duration of the trip.

Needless to say, yesterday morning’s ride was the best I ever had.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 at 8:14 am and is filed under rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.