The chat with the taxi uncle

I had a really long chat with a cabby while taking a cab from home to NTU, which costs way too much. Now I enjoy conversation, but you really wonder what you could possibly talk about with a 50ish uncle.

Quite a bit, it turns out. Especially since I was in the cab for a whole 40 minutes. 40 minutes of awkward silence is really hard. Especially if you're sitting in the front seat. After awhile, your neck gets really tired trying to look left away from the guy, and it's really not much fun playing with your phone when there's nothing on it. It's better to get some conversation going.

After a while, the first question from the uncle will always be about what I'm studying. So I'll tell the uncle I study Communications. If he goes "HAR?", I'll quickly change it to say "Oh I study electrical engineering."

Once, after doing that I actually got into a discussion about electrical wiring and circuit boards. Turns out the cabby was a former electrician. I marvel at how I kept the conversation going. But at least, nobody goes "Har?" when I mention I study electrical engineering. The only exception was one cabby who told me that electrical engineering was a bad course to study because it had bad career prospects. You guessed it. It was the former electrician.

Next the cabby will inevitably ask "When are you going to serve NS?" Nobody ever asks me where I served. They always assume I haven't gone through it, which is really quite insulting. I know I don't look like a rugged soldier ready to defend Singapore, but more like one waiting to get my arse whacked. But I'm in university now. Could they at least accord me the correct status based on my age? Bah.

As the conversation dithers on, the cabby will talk about his kids. Most cabbies have quite a few kids, but, if the cabby has a daughter around my age, the conversation starts to focus on her. Somehow, I don't know why but it happens. And just in case you were wondering, it's not me okay.

AND if she happens to be studying in NTU, that's it man. The conversation is not going anywhere else. He will actually tell me what course and which year she's studying in, and once, one of them even told me her name and how she looked like. I guess it's because I make such great conversation he's thinking of making me family already. Whoa thanks but no thanks man. Like how am I going to chat your daughter up?

"Hey... Now I know who to look for when I need a free taxi ride."

Um sorry but no. I'd sooner take the bus or MRT. And if push comes to shove, I'd buy a bicycle first.

I'm guess I'm really lucky that this is Singapore and cab rides don't last very long.

Why don't you get a job?

The holidays are perfect because one can choose exactly what to do with their time. If one feels like idling at home, you have it. If one feels like going out, one can do just that. If one feels like catching up with friends, one can do that too. Everyday though, I hear the same old tired refrains.

Refrain 1: "Why don't you get a job? Stop wasting your time at home! Look at all your friends, they are all working and earning money!"

I've long learnt that there is no good answer to this question but finding a job. But I have no intention of finding one just yet. The next question that follows will then be a job suggestion, because being unemployed, I guess I appear totally incapable of finding a job on my own.

Refrain 2: "Go find something related to your course of study and work there!" (This one is a particular favorite. I get it everyday in different permutations without fail)

Yeah. I guess that is a good idea. But if I'm going to be working at the same job for the better part of my life, why would I want to start now? Unfortunately, my nonchalance just triggers the next refrain, which is really just ultimate for lack of a better word. Ok maybe "max".

Refrain 3: "My friend's daughter is so hardworking, she's found a job and is paying all of her own bills. Her mom never has to worry about her."

Um right. My mom happens to have a lot of friends with filial and capable daughters. I don't know where all the sons went. Probably they all joined street gangs or got themselves locked up in jail or something.

However, I'll quickly deflect the topic from there onwards because whenever an eligible female is mentioned that is around my age, the next question that follows up will inevitably be

"When are you going to find a girlfriend and show her to me?"

ARGH. Lucky for me, I have a good answer for this one.

When I find a job.

Uncle steals my seat.

Most of the time, we expect everyone including ourselves to live life according to a set of unwritten rules. In Singapore, around eating places, there are a few such rules. Like the tissue packet rule. When you see a tissue packet on the table, it means the seat is chopped. In other words, someone is sitting there so you look for another seat. However, in life there are also idiots. Idiots do the opposite of what the unwritten rules say, because they are well... idiots.

What would idiots do when confronted with a tissue packet? Well it's all too simple. They just flick it on the floor, and when you come back with your food, they tell you that the seat doesn't have your name on it so anyone can sit on it. Most Singaporeans, being non confrontational, would just curse under their breath and find another seat. Some would attempt to argue with the idiot, but he's an idiot, which means he has difficulty adding two plus two, much less understanding your argument.

However, I met a new type of idiot today. The idiot of idiots. He came in the form of a mustachioed uncle. He didn't just steal a seat, he stole it when I was about to sit on it and in front of my whole astounded family. Here's what happened.

I was about to have dinner with my family in the basement foodcourt of Parkway Parade, and the whole place was full being a Saturday night. After circling the whole food court twice, we finally found a seat for 4 that had just been vacated by another bunch of people who had been eating there. We moved towards the seats, and what happened next was probably the most outrageous form of seat snatching I've ever seen in my life. Let me demonstrate with a diagram.

This is a typical food court setup of a table with four seats. The two seats in yellow were ALREADY OCCUPIED by my family members. I was about to sit on the red, and this uncle actually audaciously rushed in and sat on it. For a few seconds, there was a stunned silence. Obviously my family couldn't share the seat of 4 with this random uncle, because there were 4 of us and we needed all 4 seats. Secondly, 2 of the seats were already occupied, isn't that like the most obvious sign ever that the seats are TAKEN? The most irritating thing was, he kept looking to his left, away from my family, pretending that he couldn't see that he had obviously taken our seats, willing us to leave our seats for 4 so that he could sit on that one seat.

At this point I was so pissed both my arms were up in the air and I was about to confront him, but the rest of my family was like "don't make a scene in the food court, its crowded and we will lose face." Sounds familiar? Well I guess most Chinese families aren't really all that different. We are so afraid of losing face that when we meet a person that thick skinned, they win every time. In food courts, good guys finish last.

But since I was with my family, I decided that I shouldn't argue with him, and in the end we went to eat somewhere else. I couldn't help feeling totally disgusted though.