...wee, wee, wee, wee,...all the way home

I watched a CNN segment on traffic in Jakarta on Monday night. In the report it took a reporter 45 minutes to go 200 yards in a taxi. I remember it was monumental when I was there fifteen years ago, and I cannot imagine what it is like now. Paulus told Tony that no one stays at the Sari Pacific any more (that was the mega star hotel in downtown Jakarta) because it just takes too long to get there from the airport, and then too long to get from there to any place else. The CNN report said if traffic and traffic jams keep growing apace for the next five years, Jakarta will just stop.

Bangkok, too, has some dandy traffic jams. I expect Lynne and I will see that when we're there at Thanksgiving. Anyway, when Tony and I were in Thailand in the mid 1990s we read news accounts about drivers who "lived" in their vehicles because they spent up to 6 hours a day commuting in and around the city--unless there was a bad accident or rain, when it might be eight hours. So Bangkok commuters at that time set up shop in their cars--a cellular phone (the big clunky ones), the earliest lap top computers in the passenger seat next to them (so big they would take an entire seat), and insulated drink cups were all standard issue for intrepid road warriors. There were plenty of roadside vendors in case a driver needed a meal when in a multi-hour traffic jam. However, recognizing that what goes in must come out, one of the most essential pieces of Thai commuter equipment was a plastic urinal that could be used without getting out of the driver's seat if nature called. There were several different models, all advertising their superior drip and spill proof properties. I do not recall seeing any female models, only items appropriate for men. But that was long ago and far away.

Closer to home, I took a taxi from SIM after classes today, monsoon season has started. Buses are okay most of the time, but not during downpours, and not at the end of a VERY long day, when traffic and the stops every hundred yards or so can make the journey take up to an hour and a half. I hopped in the taxi and settled back for the 40 minutes or so it would take (in evening rush hour traffic) to get from SIM HQ back to the flat in Serangoon.

I may have closed my eyes. That was when I heard the unmistakeable sound of someone peeing into a plastic container. I know the sound, nothing else like it, I've been around plenty of kids in potty training. My innocuous little taxi driver needed to whiz...so he did. I didn't know what protocol was under the circumstances, so pretended to be totally unaware. However, I did redouble my effort to listen, just in case there might be some other plausible explanation for that distinctive noise emanating from the vicinity of Mr. Choo's lap.

Nope. It really IS an unmistakeable sound.

Taxi driving is a very competitive business in Singapore; no fares, no income, simple as that. Mr. Choo was the oldest taxi driver I've had so far, probably in his seventies at least, maybe older. Prostate? When we stopped at the next traffic light, Mr. Choo opened his door, spat, and emptied his plastic urinal onto the road where the rain carried both vital bodily fluids (for some reason, I've been thinking of Doctor Strangelove recently) off into the storm drain.

So that's how I ended up in the taxi with a driver who went wee, wee, wee, wee...all the way home.