On bended rule

Rules are good.

They set the order of things. They give chance to fairness. They’re safe. They prevent mishaps. Hell, they even make (some) people a tad responsible, so much as they know not to break them.

But rules give as much disappointment as pleasure. They tend to be a great pain in the a$$ in the most unlikely time that you may often find yourself saying, to hell with them, and cursing whoever Pontius Pilate it was who set them in the first place.

I believe in the goodness of rules, really. But it’s the sensible me that believe even much more so that any normal human being was, is or will be a violator to a rule at some extent.

Last Thursday, I was so eager to break one. I lost my I.D. (again!) and in effect, I couldn’t get in to the library. I went to the Photo ID Room to get a new but it was this horrible guy who deprived me from getting one.

Horrible guy: Sorry, you can’t. The UPIS kids are the ones scheduled today. Freshmen and upperclassmen will resume their rightful schedule next week. So come back then.

Pitiful Annel: But Sir, I really need the I.D. today to go to the library and borrow a book I must have for one of my subjects.

Horrible guy: Sorry, really can’t. It’s in the rule and the schedule.

Pitiful Annel: Can’t you really get me one? I mean, there’s not even the line of your expected students yet. You can take my picture now and produce the I.D. in less than five minutes, and I bet they still wouldn’t be here. Please, sir.

Horrible Guy: No. (turned his back on me)

Pitiful Annel: Grrrr…

Has he no consideration at all? I stated my case. I needed the I.D. for a scholastic reason. It’s not like I wanted to have a new one just for the fun of it. And what had me even more vexed was the fact that he was just there standing, waiting for the yet-to-arrive UPIS kids. What if instead of standing uselessly, he made himself helpful and accommodated me? His five-minute of standing could have produced me the I.D. I wanted. But no. Because he decided to stick with the rule and the schedule.

To hell with that rule!

And it didn’t add any appeasement that I was thinking how rules, in reality, are broken extensively. Exceptions are made. Adjustments are created. But only for special people.

Begrudgingly, I wasn’t special enough to have that pass.

I guess, rules are not that good, after all.