You’re Already Streets Ahead
I pick up four somewhat drunk men around the age of thirty in the centre of Copenhagen. After they get in the taxi, I ask where they’re going.
Customer #1: “Just drive south along the coast. We’re getting off in four different places.”
Within a few minutes of driving, I’m asked by the computer running the meter, the GPS, and so on, where I’ll end up and when I expect to be there. Because of this and because some people do tend to fall asleep when they’re a bit drunk, I ask where the last one of them is going.
Customer #1: “I’m going to [City thirty-five km south of Copenhagen].”
Me: “Where exactly in [City]?”
Customer #1: “It’s a very small town outside [City] called [Town].”
As it happens, I grew up in that very small town and I still have family living there, my mother being one of them.
Me: “Where are we going in [Town]?”
Customer #1: “It’s a small street called [Street].”
He is going to the very same small street my mother lives on.
Me: “And which number are we going to?”
Customer #1: “It’s number seven.”
I then look at him in the rear-view mirror.
Me: “That’s the new wooden house, isn’t it?”
His lower jaw actually dropped and I could almost see him thinking something along the lines of “Rain Man.”
I didn’t tell him that I’d passed that house thirty-five kilometres away numerous times, while they were building it, when visiting my mother further down the street.
