tell me about it

What a terrible, terrible, awful, horrible day.

First that, then that.

And then the worst taxi ride I’ve ever had in my life!

The cab driver was utterly silent while Mish and Stephen were in the cab - first we dropped Mish, then Stephen - and the minute Stephen got out of the cab, he started talking.

You know how cab drivers talk and talk and you give polite little “Uh huh”s, “Mmm”s and “Ya”s? Yeah. And he wasn’t just talking - he related to me several stories about annoying Indian passengers, and then started trash-talking Indian people. Which obviously got me pissed off because so many of my closer friends are Indian (and Shyam claims I’m half Indian myself).

And then to my horror when he chose to take CTE instead of the Istana way, we ended up nose-first in a horrible jam.

Which is about when he started trash-talking every other driver on the road.

“Bastard man, your bastard father, you must be Indian, how you drive! I take hammer and knock your car then you know. Wait I call police to revoke your license!”

Me: *agape* *starts to pray*

This is also about the time when he started twitching and jerking spasmodically in his seat. He also started sweating profusely, nervously wiping off his sweat with his hands every two seconds. I, unfortunately, was stuck in the bloody front seat because the two had been at the back and I’d expected a quick 10 minute drive back from Clarke Quay where I’d dropped Stephen.

Alas.

Twenty more minutes of hell as he cursed at other drivers for their parentage (dubious), their driving skills (lack of), and their race (Indian or Malay) and we crawled at a snail’s pace toward home.

I wanted to cry. His twitching and sweating was seriously freaking me out. The pace was bloody frustrating, and the vulgarities and racism was just pissing the hell out of me.

Then when we were finally near home (oh thank the sweet Lord), the worst happened.

A bus suddenly swung into our lane when it had been indicating left to go to the bus stop. Some taxi had stopped its inconsiderate ass right in front of the bus stop. Two other cars had stopped right in front of it. Either they had all stopped suddenly or the bus driver hadn’t been looking where he was going, resulting in the sudden horrified swerve outwards to avoid the three cars.

My heart had already jumped from the close shave. It didn’t help when the twitchy, sweaty taxi driver started cussing his head off at the bus driver. Predictably.

“@#$@#%#$@#$!????!!??!”

He turned to me.

“Must be Malaysian driver. Johor driver this one.”

I gritted my teeth in anger and just shut the hell up hoping that he would follow suit. The next second I let out a terrified whimper as the taxi driver SWUNG quickly and deliberately in and out of the bus driver’s lane.

“See? You like that? How do you like that huh! Malaysian driver.”

I wanted to ask him how he knew I wasn’t Malaysian myself, but he had pretty much exhausted every inch of my goodwill by then and I was just too relieved when he pulled up at my block and I got out of the cab.

On hindsight and on people’s advice, I guess I should have taken down his cab number and his name but I had just wanted so badly to get the hell out of his cab.

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