I was at the library near home yesterday, accessing the Internet on one of its multi-media workstations. It was noisy as there was chattering from three middle-aged aunties and their young children all of whom were hovering around one of the workstations.
Despite this, I managed to shut out the noise from my mind as I concentrated on reading a Website I was visiting. When I next looked up from the screen, I realised this group was now occupying three workstations — two of which were on my side of the counter.
But, the children seated at each of these two workstations were not using the terminals — they weren’t even logged in. They were just plain sitting there, playing on the keyboard. Standing around the workstations in the multi-media section were some teenagers waiting for their turn to use the Internet. But the young children did not bulge from their seats. Apparently, they were under instructions to ‘chope’ the seats till 3.30pm when they would need to use the Internet.
It was only 2.50pm then. So from 2.50pm to 3.30pm nobody else could use the two unused workstations. At about 3.10pm, some of the teenagers were ‘negotiating’ with one of these aunties for the use of the workstations. The auntie would only agree to letting these teenagers use the two workstations provided the teenagers logged out at 3.30pm — the time when the aunties would need to use these two workstations.
I was appalled at such selfish behaviour. It was bad enough when you saw these chaps ‘chopeing’ the seats at hawker centres and food courts. But, this one took the cake.
What could I do? It wasn’t my business. The teenage girls were meek. When I had finished using the Internet, I logged out and stopped by the customer service counter on my way out of the library. I approached a librarian at the counter to voice my displeasure that such things were happening in the library. Another librarian, sitting next to the one I was talking to, immediately leapt to her feet, saying these people had no right to do such things. I saw her walk briskly towards the group of aunties.
Having said my piece, I walked out of the place. This certainly was home here in Singapore.
‘chope’: reserve (local slang)
auntie: housewife (local slang)
