Dear Taxi Driver,

Once upon a time, a taxi ride in Athens, Greece, could spiral from an ordinary journey into a riotous escapade. Stepping into a taxi, you never knew where you’d end up, at what time, or with whom. 

In this sanitised age of ride-hailing apps, route planners, ETA displays and star ratings, this is one man’s lament for a more whimsical, bygone era when hailing a cab was a call to adventure.  

Dear Taxi Driver,

At 8.15am this morning, I received a notification that you were two minutes away. I stepped out of my house just as you pulled up, bang on 8.15am. The cab was clean and smelled of leather and pine. The back-seat passenger window on the driver’s side was fully operational. There was no blaring music, no telephone calls, no angry shouts of “malaka,” there was only the steady hum of a fully functioning air conditioning unit.

You obeyed the rules of the road meticulously, followed the prescribed route judiciously and dropped me at my place of business at ten to nine uttering, “Have a nice day, sir” the bookend to your only other comment of, “Good Morning, sir”. The fare was exactly as quoted, no money exchanged hands. I awarded you a five-star driver rating for promptness and added a 10% tip for which you awarded me back a five-star passenger rating.

WHAT A CRUSHING BORE!

My good man, I am an accountant for a wholesale firm that peddles low-cost white goods. I spend my workday in an airless office surrounded by three mummified colleagues who view an enquiry into the weather as a riveting topic of conversation. At 64 years-old, I am the youngest member of the department and therefore responsible for the following administrative tasks: coffee runs, stationery orders and answering the phones.

As it happens, I am also the only member of the department with:

-a hand steady enough to handle a hot kettle

-basic knowledge of how a computer works

-hearing that is good enough to hear the phone ring  

At home, my children ignore me to my dismay. My wife ignores me, to my great relief. It is only my 89-year-old mother, who lives in the granny flat next door, who acknowledges my existence. Mainly she complains that I don’t visit her enough, that my wife is a terrible cook, that her grandchildren are hooligans, and that all the sacrifices she made to raise me were in vain given my mediocre career and my feeble character.

A GREAT ESCAPE

Taxi rides used to be an escape from my mundane life, a technicolour adventure in an otherwise colourless day. I would walk onto the pavement, raise my arm, step into a taxi and on any given day find myself squished alongside three complete strangers, all of us going in different directions but assured that we would each get to our respective destinations with time to spare.

Invariably, I would alight behind schedule and often miles away from where I needed to be. The traffic or roadworks were always to blame, never you. I reeked of cigarette smoke, my suit was stained by whatever mystery substance the previous passengers had left behind. The fare was a crap shoot since you would conveniently forget to reset the meter after the first few drop offs and uncanny as it seemed, you never had exact change.

And yet, taxis were the great equalizer. I could be sandwiched in between a headmaster and a prostitute, a butcher and a civil servant, or a socialite with her miniature cockapoo and a pensioner. As we careened madly through the streets, we would either set the world to right or curse one another and everyone in existence. Either way on that journey, we came alive.

You were the absolute ruler of this traveling circus. There were stern dressing downs for closing a door too loudly, being foolish enough to suppose the seat belt worked, for requesting an open window on a searingly hot day, and for the greatest transgression of all, daring to imply that the route you’d opted for was in fact the long way around.

IF SOCRATES AND PLATO WERE ALIVE TODAY

Those who believe that the greatest philosophical minds in Greece existed only in ancient times clearly have not spent a lot of time in Athenian taxis.  

In England, cab drivers must pass a test called The Knowledge to qualify. In Greece, taxi drivers answered to a higher calling. It was your moral duty to impart your wisdom to the passengers who graced your taxi (or as you affectionally called us, your flock).

Whether we were in need of folk wisdom, economic theory, political analysis, or a debrief of cultural affairs you were there to enlighten us. If we sought a shoulder to cry on, guidance on how to confront a nasty neighbour, tips on how to outwit a pesky colleague or help to cover up an illicit dalliance, you bestowed your wisdom upon us with great generosity. And for a pittance! All advice, particularly the unsolicited kind, was available for a paltry minimum fare of €3.50.

To witness such whimsy and wisdom being replaced by organisation, efficiency and dependability saddens me. Now, all I get when I travel by taxi is an uneventful ride from A to B in complete silence with nothing but my thoughts to fill the time. 

HEAR MY PLEA

The next time I hail you from the street, ignore the apps, please. Just lurch into the bus lane, screech to a halt to pick me, then pick up up another three or four passengers and see where the road takes us.

Yours,

A nostalgic passenger

P.S. I could really use some advice on quitting my job and dumping my meddling mother into a care home. Surge rates on ride-share apps have priced me out of therapy and I need urgent counselling to get my life back on track.  

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Come along for a merry journey, brewed up by

Christina Fotinelli and The Coffee Letters.