It hurts.

I've never had to face something like that before in my life.

5 students from my class got themselves into trouble on Saturday. After they served their community service selling flags, they decided to take a free-ride home on a taxi. Only that the taxi driver was not aware that the ride was going to be for free.

They did it. They stopped the taxi where they wanted to and they ran off from the taxi in different directions so that the poor driver had no way to give chase to any of them. That's it. Scam, they call it.

I was horrified when I found out. Dumbfounded. Shocked. Disappointed. Hurt. Angry. Sad. Disgusted.

How could you??? Whatever happened to integrity and honesty? Doing something like that is equivalent to robbing the poor taxi driver. Do you know that his meter readings are all computerized and recorded by the company and they track how much he earns? That's how they are able to tell if the taxi drivers are for real when they are unable to pay up their daily rental. During my dad's time as a taxi driver in the 1980's-1990's, a taxi driver's daily rental for his cab was about $80.00 PER DAY. This means he had to make $80 per day to cover the cost of renting the cab, before he begins hs real earnings after the costs are covered. This is only the cost of the cab. What about the diesel?? Diesel may be cheaper than petrol but do you realise that the taxi's are on the road all the time so their diesel runs out fast and they need to top up every day?? (sometimes even more than once a day) How often do your fathers top of the petrol in their cars? Once a week? If the rental cost of a taxi was $80 in the 1980's, how much do you think it is today? It's year 2006. You think it's cheaper?

Do you have any idea how hard a taxi driver has to work? He's on the road the whole day. Rain or shine. If he needs the toilet, he has to park his car at the petrol kiosk to use the dirty ones they have there. Or he needs to park his taxi near some coffee shop to use the toilets there. Parking either means tearing coupons for parking time, or illegal 5-min parking of the taxi which puts him in danger of risking a $30-$70 fine for a mere pee. How stressful is that?? A taxi driver has to have enough sleep everyday in order to be alert on the roads. He can only drive for a certain amount of time. He cannot drive his cab for more than 12hours as it would be dangerous. So within that short few hours, he has to make money to put bread on the table for his family.

In that brief 20min-30min ride, he could have made a few dollars from you, to cover rental cost for the day, or to give to his children as pocket money for the week.

A brief moment of fun for you.... 20min of wasted time, diesel and earnings for him.

How could you??

I feel this even more as my own father was a taxi driver. Mum always told us how hard he works just to pay for our piano lessons and swimming lessons. If something like that happened to my dad, I'd be cursing and swearing at those inconsiderate culprits.

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Suddenly as I am typing all this out, I begin to feel like I'm wasting my own time, energy on it. I've said what I want to say. I wish I could put this behind me. But somehow it comes back to haunt me when I think I've managed to push it away. It's just.....disturbing...

I really dread having to deal with this issue in school. It's so hard. I want to run away from it and pretend I never knew about it. I truly dread it. Because it hurts.