Cablog

Embarrassed

Two fares on Saturday night perfectly illustrate the contrasting techniques of vomiting in a taxi. The first example was smart, the second dumb.

The passengers, both women insisted they had never been sick before in a cab and apologised profusely. They were mature, middle-class and well mannered. Both had been farewelled at the pick-up by solicitous friends and appeared sober, with no indication of their inebriation.

The first woman sat up front and lamented going home early after disgracing herself at a party. This was the first sign of her condition. So it was little surprise when two minutes later she requested we stop, quick!

Opening the door she leaned out and went through the standard routine of guttural retching. Between spits and coughs she muttered an apology but I told her to take as long as necessary, just relieved she had given me advance warning.

After dropping her home with no further interruptions I pulled into a service station to clean off any collateral residue, usually on the door and the sill, but was pleasantly surprised to find none. She was a class act.

The second fare climbed in the back seat and ordered the north shore. She had been to the Australia v France rugby match, of which we chatted briefly before falling silent. From this exchange I got no sense that she was drunk at all.

However, within minutes I heard the unmistakable whoosh of gushing fluid and turned to check. She was upright and motionless in the half light and I asked if she was okay.

When she failed to reply I hit the cabin light to find that she had dumped a large deposit down her front, without any attempt to use the window. She was stunned by the sudden eruption, like a child.

Using the drivers panel I dropped her window and headed for a nearby garage whilst another spurt belched into her football scarf which she held to her mouth. An Aussie Wallaby scarf, qué horror! By the time we reached the garage she had totally lost control and was laying across the seat.

The good news was she had managed to spray most of the load over her clothes and once I got her out found there was little left to clean, save for five minutes of sluicing and drying with paper towels. Best of all there no lingering odour to gross out the next passengers.

This poor girl was also totally embarrassed and offered to pay for the clean-up but I only took the fare and told her to get lost. After advising that next time she stick her head out the window, or ask to stop the cab. Common sense, really.

That’s the difference between either trashing a cab or swallowing one’s pride (excuse the pun) by throwing up outside the cab.

As I reassured the first passenger, “Mate, don’t worry about it. You'll never embarrass a taxi driver”.

On race(2)

Last night I carried a young couple from a budget hotel in the City to Merrylands, near Parramatta. They were Fijian Indians who live in Vancouver, Canada and were in Sydney on a short vacation to visit a cousin.

The woman remained silent as the bloke talked about Canada and Fiji, his business plus general tourism stuff. Although he avoided mention of racial tension in his homeland I couldn’t help but recall my visits to Vancouver in the eighties.

Back then there was lots of resentment from Canadians to the sudden influx of Indian immigrants and I heard many stories of tension and skirmishes between groups of young people from both clans.

These conflicts have some resemblance to the bashings of Indian students in Sydney by Lebanese punks.

Twenty five years ago I judged the trouble in Vancouver to be primarily motivated by race. However viewed from the perspective of the Sydney assaults I now believe those conflicts were more likely about territory disputes between locals and newcomers.

The fact these groups involve different cultures seems purely incidental.  Canucks, Indians, Lebanese, Fijians...whoever, just 'not in my back yard'.

We arrived at the address, a block of villas, to find a large group of people gathered around a heavily smoking barbeque in the common driveway.

When we couldn’t see any Indians in the group the bloke got out to confirm the address, thence returned to inform his girlfriend that his cousin and family were also there having dinner with their neighbours.

The neighbours were of 'Middle Eastern' origin.  

On race

Early this morning a woman climbed in around 2:30 am at Star City casino and ordered a satellite suburb on the outskirts of Sydney. After a lousy Sunday night I could have kissed her in gratitude.

It wasn’t that she was 34 weeks pregnant which struck me, or the fact she’d just won $5000 on the pokies, or that a heavily pregnant woman was out gambling late at night with three young children at home. Nup, it was her enlightened attitude on race.

“I only gamble when I’m pregnant,” she explained. “In my culture it’s considered that pregnancy either brings good luck or bad luck. So with each of my pregnancies I’ve gone to the Casino and usually I win.”

When she claimed this practise had the imprimatur of her husband I was reminded of Rodney Dangerfield's character in Easy Money. After his wife complains about his gambling he retorts, “You only hate it when I lose!”

The passenger’s parents were a Vietnamese mother and a French father. And her husband’s heritage was Thai and Chinese.

When I joked that her children were ‘Asian salads’, she laughed, “That’s it, but you know what? When people ask what they are I say they’re Aussies. Not because it’s easier to explain but that’s just what they are, Aussies.”

That’s modern Australia.

Away

Over the next few weeks or so I'm taking care of some long overdue journal writing.

In the meantime feel free to post any taxi related queries you want addressed and I'll endeavour to provide a prompt response.

Cheers, Adrian.