Most of time when I hop into a cab, I would be hopping that the taxi uncle will not be too chatty so that I can have some personal space and time. Well, today I was actually hoping for a super chatty uncle. On the contrary, this particular cab driver needed some time to warm up. He worked in the day shift, thus according to him, he doesn't have a lot of weirdo passengers or strange incidents. So I asked him, if anyone ran away without paying cab fares. Oh, this really kept him talking.
He said it's quite common for taxi drivers to face this problem. And he related two incidents, and to my surprises, both were aunties, who looks liked in their 40s! The first one was giving a "true-to-life" story, that she is getting a divorce and asking the taxi uncle not to tell the husband where they are parked in awhile. Then, she stepped out of the cab to get something and let the uncle waited for more than half and hour. After the wait, he knew that he would never get back the cab fare of about $10 from her. Alright, that was pathetic, but the next story was worse.
Another auntie was with a kid about 3 or 4 years old. And uncle was saying how cute the kid was. Thus, when the auntie said that she needs to get money from someone to pay for the cab fare. He was really caught off guard again. He said he would never expected that aunties like them would Ride and Dashed right. Oh man! Just leave the kid behind in the cab next time.
Overall, it was a pleasant ride, uncle was a full time NS man who serviced the government for 30 over years. When he retired at 50 years old, he can't find any other jobs. And there were ever employers who told him, they wanted someone not older than 35 years old. Thus, he became a cab driver, and it has being 10 years on the roads. He has 5 grand children already, and he said he placed his family first place, thus he chose to drive in the day time so that he can spend time with the family. Now this is one good family uncle.
BTW, do you know that there is a Taxi pool service offered by SMRT. I reckon this can help us to save some transportation money and you may be able to talk to some friendly strangers while on the way to work.
http://www.smrt.com.sg/taxis/taxis.asp
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