Silly Me

Early yesterday evening at Ashfield station a woman with travel luggage hailed me. She was around thirty years of age and bound for an inner-city suburb. After we loaded the luggage in the boot she climbed in the front seat.

She wanted to chat right away, despite my being distracted by another matter. It crossed my mind she may well be my story for the night, so I responded positively, ‘Yeah, so far so good, how about yourself, have a nice weekend ?’. ‘Sure have’, she replied, ‘I’ve just been up to the Mountains for the weekend’. ‘Oh yeah, do anything interesting ?’, I asked. ‘Yep, had a great party last night’...

As we weren’t travelling far I decided to find out all about her party. ‘Why was it great ?’. ‘Well’, she said, ‘there was lots of friends and we had some ‘e’, umm, and great music...’. ‘How do you know it was ‘e’', I queried, 'and not some cheap chemist speed ?’. ‘Cause I know the source and it came-on properly’, she said. ‘Actually I don’t use ‘e’ much but when I do it always works’. A common complaint in the cab is the amount of fake ecstasy in Sydney, usually amphetamines masquerading as ecstasy.

‘So what else’, I pressed. ‘Well, it was a fetish party...’. I did a double-take and looked across at her. ‘Fetish !?’, I exclaimed, ‘sounds kinky, um...um...what did you wear ?’. ‘Latex’, she laughed, ‘it was wall-to-wall latex’. ‘Coool’, I said, just as she directed me to take a short-cut through a deserted shopping-centre car park.

Turning into the driveway I braked. ‘Umm...I don’t usually do this at night - you’re not going to mug me are you ?’. ‘Of course not !’, she laughed. ‘What would I mug you with anyway ?’. ‘I dunno, sweaty latex..?’. Inside the car park she had me stop as she lived in an adjacent house, backing onto the car park. After flicking me a small tip she said, ‘You’ve just reminded me I’ve got a lot of washing to do’. One could only imagine...

Unloading her luggage I said, ‘Oh well, you’ll have lots to talk about at work tomorrow. Did you get any photos ?’. ‘Yes, we had a professional photographer’, she replied. ‘Are you going to put them on the Internet ?’, I asked excitedly. ‘Yes, of course’, she smiled. ‘My Yahoo profile is ______, spelt with an o and two n’s’. Unbelievable I thought, until a cursory Yahoo search after work yielded no definite results. Silly me.

Later in the evening I picked up a young woman in the City, travelling to the same suburb. She also sat up front. ‘Going home ?’, I asked. ‘Yes, finally’, she said, ‘I’ve been clubbing all weekend’. So I related the tale of the fetish party girl, and of getting her Yahoo profile name. ‘That’s pretty weird’, she said. ‘Reckon’, I agreed, ‘she sure was liberated. I think she might have been gay’. ‘Why, did she look masculine ?’. ‘No, actually she was quite pretty. At first I thought she might be a prostitute cause she had like, prostitute-red lipstick and finger nails’. In hindsight, a blatant Freudian slip !

Anyway I proceeded to rabbit-on about other weird passengers I’ve carried, without noticing my passenger had fallen silent. When she suddenly requested I stop some three hundred metres short of her destination it momentarily occurred to me I’d somehow spooked her. However I was relieved to note the meter showed exactly fifteen dollars. Also we’d stopped outside a late-night 7/11 store. Either fact a common reason for passengers stopping a trip earlier than expected.

As she opened the door the light came on and she thrust fifteen dollars at me. Taking the money I noticed, to my horror, her prostitute-red fingernails ! Oh dear, silly me.

Comments

[steve at the pub]

Haha! Fantastic story!

[ab]

It's a common problem in service industries, being uprooted by one's own small talk, d'oh! Someone had to tell her, besides, you said it looked pretty so don't feel too bad.

[Zoe Brain]

Note to self: Ditch the Red Nail Polish.
Plum's more my colour anyway.