My Chum the Taxi Driver

“Mornin.’ I am so very pleased you called. How may I be of service to you?”

“Hello, good morning. Uhm. At 7:50. At this apartment. A taxi of one number. Please. Oh god, please.”

“AH! Nicole!”

“Yes… yes, that’s right…it’s Nicole.”

*chuckles on the other end of the phone line* “I recognized you from your pitiful shambles of Japanese grammar. No one else does it like you! Okay, I got it. We’ll be there.”

Click.

Sometimes when I call home my parents have difficulty figuring out who I am. I have had lengthy conversations with my mother before I realize that she has it completely wrong. I will not see her this weekend, will not be on the Amtrak train and, unlike my sister, have not lately had any incidents in my life involving overweight women, lubricants, probes, latex gloves and incessant screaming as said women repeatedly attempt to climb off the table. “You don’t know who this is, do you, DO YOU?” I scream angrily into the phone, tears welling up in my eyes. And she didn’t. Till that moment.

My father sometimes will return my happy-to-be-calling-home-“HEY!” with a gruff and accusatory, “WHO’S THIS???” and upon figuring out that it is his worldly daughter calling from abroad, will drop the occasional useful vocabulary word in Japanese to make the phone call at least slightly educational.

My sisters, my mother and I all seem to sound the same despite the fact that we vary in age by decades. Much like Ariel and Ursula, after undergoing her Hottie-Transformation, we all share the same voice courtesy of a magical little golden seashell necklace. However, this has definite advantages as when babysitting I can simply stand behind a door, croon at my sister’s baby a la-my-eldest-sister and the unwitting kid won’t have a clue.

So whilst my father and mother who have known me all my life (so they tell me), and my nephew who has known me for all his, can’t recognize me by my melodious voice, the Japanese guy manning the phones at the local taxi company knows me by a simple “hello.”

Several drivers know me as well. Generally speaking, in the morning, my brain functions even less well in bi-lingual mode than it does normally. Ohio gozaimasu becomes a “Good-ohio-dias-mane” bastard courtesy of a knot of cranial language wires and just managing to get out my destination is hard enough. But cab drivers are chatty. They’re curious. And given the fact that they are behind the wheel of a car all day driving around humdrum Niihama, I can hardly blame them.

There is one cab driver with whom I am particularly garrulous. After I ran into him once randomly in the train station (outside his usual habitat) and, in a fluster, asked him how to work the blasted ticket machine so that I could get to a festival, the friendship was sealed. About thirty percent of the time I don’t know what’s going on but it’s times like that when it becomes key to change the subject and make nonsequiturial remarks about how crowded the road is, or ponder the percentage that it may, or may not snow tomorrow.

Normally we chat about the weather, his grandkids, or our plans for the past or upcoming holidays. Today is more or less the same. He asks me how long I plan on being in Japan:

“Hm. Two years at least. Maybe three. I don’t quite know yet. I would like to live in a city if possible one day.”

He says something that sounds as though he thinks people in cities drink too much.

I then ask him how he spent his golden week.

“Blaaah. Work, work, work. Sucks doesn’t it?”

“Ah, that really does suck. I’m sorry.”

“But yesterday I did go to a yuuenchi.”

“Beg your pardon. A Yuuenchi?”

“Yeah. Yuuenchi. You understand?”

“An amusement park. You went to an amusement park yesterday?” It isn’t that I don’t understand the word, it’s just that it’s not what I was expecting to come out of his mouth.

“Sure did.”

“Nice. Did you go with your grandkids?”

“Naaah. They’re too young. They’re 1 and 3. Can’t go with them. Little bastards.”

“So… you went by yourself?”

“Yup!”

He then honks loudly at a car that is being very Japanese and looking left, right, left, right, forwards, backwards, up, down and diagonal before pulling out and making a left hand turn.

“Bah! Women drivers!” he mumbles.

I can’t help but like this guy.

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Published:
5.20.07 / 11am
Category:
amusing incidents, what i call life, unschoolish