The Transporter

The recent announcement that Singapore is freezing the number of cars on the road has thrown my friends into that uniquely Singaporean blend of panic and rage.

            “This is ridiculous! How am I supposed to get around without a car?” moaned Ming on Facebook, a comment that led our mutual friend Elliot who lives in Dallas to comment, “Honey, you live in a country that takes half an hour to cross from one end to the other. Try living in Texas!”

            In a private message to me, Ming said this was exactly the sort of thing that had made her loathe Elliot when we were all at school. “Zero empathy! Must always have the last word! Honestly, why is that some men just won’t let you have the last word!” I remained discretely silent. My mother didn’t raise any stupid children.

            “But why does Ming even need a car?” Amanda asked. “She has no children and she works from home!”

            “She says she’s sick and tired of taking the train everywhere, and she’s been saving up for three years for the down-payment, surviving on economy mee for lunch, and now this announcement…”

            “I’m with her, though,” Saffy said, putting her feet up on the coffee table, as she burrowed deeper into the sofa with her iPad. “It would be so nice to have a car. Sometimes, you just want to get somewhere without having to go through the whole hassle of taking the train or the bus!”

            “The solution is called Grab, Saf,” I told her.

            From the depths of the sofa, Saffy’s enormous bosom inflated like a life-jacket. “Yes, but that’s an extra step of tapping details on my phone and then waiting. And the drivers always get lost finding us, and we waste time hanging around the lobby waiting for and waiting, watching them go up and down the road on the phone because they can’t find our huge entrance! It’s aggravating!”

            “Good ting I orredi got car,” Sharyn announced that evening when we met for dinner at Wisma’s Japan Food Town. “Udderwise-hor, chiam, ah! How to take my mudder-in-law see doctor, or fetch my chil-ren to school and tuition?”

            Saffy sniffed. “You spoil your kids, Shaz. When we were growing up, we took buses to school and walked everywhere.”
            Amanda raised an eyebrow. “It’s probably why you have such strong, sturdy calf muscles.”

            Saffy, for whom sarcasm is like frying eggs on a Teflon pan, giggled good-naturedly. “No, seriously. I just don’t understand this whole business about driving children everywhere. Especially when they’re over 13!”

            Sharyn waved her chopsticks. “Yah, I oh-so same as you when I grow up: take bus and walk everywhere. But chil-ren today, hor, they got so many ting on their schedule, wah, if you make dem take bus, confirm they can do oh-nee one ting a day, ah! And then, end of year, sure fail all their exam because dey neh-ber make it to tuition!”

            “If I had children, I’d drive them everywhere, too,” Amanda said, her lovely eyes dreamily lost in a parallel universe in which her son and daughter, dressed in this season’s Dolce & Gabbana Kids were ferried to ballet and judo classes – her two current obsessions. “Or at least, the chauffeur would be driving them.”

            “Amanda is so sensible,” I told Karl, my best friend and long-suffering unhappily married father of four. “Whilst everyone is moaning about not having a car, her life goal is to have a car and a driver!”

            Karl looked put out. “Why would anyone want a car in Singapore? It’s such a nightmare finding parking!”

            I told him he was missing the whole point of the chauffeur. “You just get out of the car and walk away,” I said. “Where he parks or what he does with the car while you’re having lunch or at the gym is not your problem! So long as he’s there to pick you up when you’re done and ready to go to your next appointment!”

            Karl was unmoved. “I make my kids take the bus and MRT everywhere. Matthew moaned for an entire year that he wanted to join the school’s football team, so finally I said, ‘Sure, go ahead, you can join, but you will take the train to practice every Saturday morning, because I’m not driving you!’ That was the last I heard about football!”

             “You and Saffy should get married,” I said.

            “Don’t think I don’t have fantasies about that!” Karl moaned. “I’d drive anywhere with that woman and her air-bags!”

            When I told Saffy, she said she couldn’t decide if she was offended or aroused.