-
@ mike
2025-03-01 13:09:48
I am reminded of a cruise port stop we made to Belfast a few years ago. A popular thing to do is to take a black cab taxi tour. Drivers are from both the British and Irish side and it's pot luck which you get.
We got an Irish driver.
Because my wife is Scottish and considered sympathetic to the Irish cause, our driver addressed her almost exclusively. If I asked a question he would reply to her.
The tour was an hour and involved 55 minutes touring the Irish side with an expedient non stop drive down the Shankhill Road on the British side to end the tour.
Because the driver was uncomfortable talking to me, he didn't get a chance to discover I was sympathetic to his cause and mostly supported Irish independence.
Because of this I decided to tip the driver a very large sum of money, the type of money an American tourist would tip. I handed it over and immediately walked away.
Five minutes later, my wife realised she had left a very expensive scarf in the back of the cab, so we phoned the taxi office to discover the driver had handed it in. So we walked back to pick it up.
On turning the corner, our driver was standing out front smoking a cigarrette. He saw me, stubbed it out and walked briskly over to me with a smile on his face. He grabbed me by the shoulder and led me to the office explaining that he was glad I'd returned to pick up my wife's scarf.
This time, he completely ignored my wife 😂