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JAYNE WITH A WHY |
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Friday, November 30, 2007A VERY RARE THING HAPPENED..................A very rare thing happened this week. Some five days after The Event, I'm still feeling a tad stunned! Instead of taking the car out of it's highly prized parking spot*, I decided to catch a taxi. I needed to go to Abu Dhabi Mall & then to the Harley shop, to collect our luggage, from the trip to Muscat. I managed to get a taxi to the mall within 2 minutes of standing just outside our apartment block. "Abu Dhabi Mall please" I tell the driver. "." grunts the driver...........which could be translated into anything in any language. He was sat so low in his seat I'm surprised he could see above the steering wheel! I go to the mall, conduct my business, which concluded with me having a major stress-on at the ignorant FHW**-with-attitude in a particular financial institution. I head out to the taxi rank, outside the entrance to the mall & join the queue. I said a silent prayer: Please let me be lucky enough to get one of the all-new-bright-and-shiny taxis! The queue moved along & I missed a new taxi, thanks to the customer in front of me, grrrrr. Next taxi is one of the old ones, circa 1990 or thereabouts. It's tatty. It's smelly, like only these taxis can be.  I slide in the back seat & make another silent wish: Please, please understand where I need to go! My driver looks like a veteran of several Taliban skirmishes. He's an Afghan & I can picture him as one of the characters out of Frederick Forsyth's latest book. Blinding!  (For illustrative purposes only. I copied this pic off a news site. This bloke was marrying a 12yr old or some such thing, but he looked a bit like the driver I had.) "You know Harley Davidson?" I ask "?" he replies, puzzled. "Harley Davidson................Al Falah street?" "Corniche?" he asks. Patience I mutter, just be patient. (Harley is nowhere near the sodding Corniche.) "OK, you know Al Salaam street?" I ask. "Yes!" "OK, corner..............Salaam & Falah please!" Off we go. As we pull up outside the Harley dealer, I ask - in my best pidgin English - "You wait please.......just 2 minutes. I collect bag. Yes?" & imitate holding a suitcase. I whizz into the shop, collect a suitcase & rucksack & head out to the taxi again. SHOCK Number 1 My friendly Taliban-looking driver got out of his taxi, opened the boot & put my bags in for me! In the past two & a half years in Abu Dhabi, no other taxi driver has done that for me! I got back into the taxi & tell him where I need to go - i.e. home. He pointed to the meter & informed me my fare so far was 4 dirhams. SHOCK Number 2 Not only did my friendly Taliban-looking taxi driver pull into the small car park at our building, but he got out, took my bags from the boot & placed them on the pavement! I was shocked, stunned & not a little amazed, I can tell you! This kind of service does not happen very often, trust me. The old saying of 'never trust a book by its cover' is so very true. I naturally assumed that this driver was going to be a miserable git, who chewed on his lung butter before gobbing it out of the window. How wrong I was! I thanked him in 3 different languages & gave him a well deserved huge tip. He really was an exception to the rule. *Other patrons of the underground carpark (where we have an allocated bay) try everything within their means to get the bay closest to the stairwell out & up into the street, which we nabbed months ago. If either Hubs or myself use the 4 x 4, then the Harley is parked across the bay, thereby blocking the space for any wannabe poachers. It pisses on people's batteries. Check the worry in my eyes. ** FHW - F*cking Head Wobbler.  
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