As I stepped out the parking lot at the back of Gambir Railway Station in Jakarta one night, I was suddenly surrounded by quite a few taxi drivers. They were trying to get me taking their taxis. I had meant to take a taxi home so in no time I just followed one taxi driver who said that his taxi used an argometer.
It had been a tiring day and all I wanted was going home soon. As I sat myself on the back seat of the taxi, the driver slowly drove away from the lot and said, "I won’t use the argometer, you just pay 30.000 rupiahs and that includes the parking fee, okay, Miss?"
Eww… wait a minute. Oh, nevermind. I was too tired to argue. Besides, his offer wasn’t so expensive. I figured that’s the same amount of money I would pay using taxis with argometer.
He was an old driver and from the look on his face, he was about to accept my disagreement or my jumping out of his taxi, but I just said lightly, "Fine, Sir."
When we stopped on the traffic light, a street child knocked on my window. I gave him some bread instead of money. "The love of money won’t get him anywhere, don’t you agree, Sir?" I tried to philosophize when the driver questioned me.
"Well, it’s true… but we need some money to live," he said.
"Who doesn’t?" (But don’t be too greedy about money…. I said this to myself.)
