This is sort of routine for me now! Not specifically going to Malaysia but the early morning taxi journey that precedes some flight to some end destination. Normally these trips go smoothly and without comment, a taxi pulls up at the door, I kiss the wife goodbye (whilst wandering again why I have to leave the good life) and without further ado I find myself at the airport and a taxi driver with his handout expecting some cash to be passed over. Uneventful as they should be.
This particular driver was an exception. I'm positive that I've met him before and in-fact included him in an article I wrote in 2003 titled "The Singapore Taxi Driver" where I suffered a journey of imitation bagpipe playing and horse neighing.
This morning as I was ticking through my items for the third time, passport, toothbrush, money, etc, my phone rang. "Eeehee, you call for taxi?", shouted some voice at me. It is not normal for taxi drivers to call prospective customers, normally they just turn up at the door. This is a worldwide standard that comes with little variation.
Anyway, I played along and answered in the positive. "One minute, lah, you wait one minute and I come, okay Lah, one miniiiiite......" he screamed, over what sounded like some aggressive swearing from another vehicle nearby. Thirty seconds later to a screech of brakes and another phone call an unusually (for Singapore) dilapidated taxi pulled up with a squeal of brakes and smells of burning rubber. I kissed the wife goodbye, and before I had even put the first foot in the driver was demanding "where you go, where we go today, I take you first class, quickly, where you from, America?". Before I had even closed the door we were off and for the first time ever I was unable to turn around and send a kiss to my wife through the rear window - I was busy scraping myself off the floor. My driver who had got off to a flying start braked hard into a U-turn that whilst was quite perfectly completed was totally illegal and more pointedly had us facing in the opposite direction to the airport.
I decided that today I would wear a seatbelt!
From the next twenty minutes it transpired that all Scots work for MI5 including Tony Blair (who secretly collaborated with the CIA part-time), that all Scottish blokes are 'players' including myself who had just left one girl (my wife) and who was heading off to Kuantan, not for work, but for some MI5 action and a floosie. It would also seem that I should be careful with the technical spy equipment in my luggage as Singapore Airport would immediately assume that it was an explosive device. At one point he had both hands off the wheel as he imitated James Bond shooting his enemies (I think the invisible bullets went through the roof)!
He pulled up at the airport burning black rubber whilst shaking my hand and advising me to be careful of Malaysians who all secretly wish they were Scottish and who perhaps might be jealous of my 'equipment'. Which equipment he was referring to I did not pause to query.
A total nut job but what better way to pass the twenty minutes between my house and the airport - I never knew time could pass so quickly!
No wake-up coffee required this morning!
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