Deja vu-hicle

I knew eventually it would happen. Well actually I didn't so much know as have a vague sense that one day it would happen. And today, it did. I got into a cab and recognised the driver.

Let me just put the wonder of this experience in perspective for you:

The Sydney Taxi service is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with around 4,800 cars and 20,000 drivers (according to the NSW taxi service site). Even if we assume that I've taken two cabs a week, every week for the past five years, I would have only come into contact with 520 vehicles. The odds of getting the same driver twice would be very slim. Very, very slim.

I'm also not known for my memory. In fact to date I have managed to misplace seven mobile phones, two cameras and three sets of keys, all thanks to my memory. If I ever have children, they will be in grave danger of being left at the playground and re-named at least three times. So the chances of me remembering some stranger who I'd shared a fifteen minute cab ride with are truly miniscule.

And yet today, as I exchanged stories about -20 degree days with my friendly taxi driver, it suddenly dawned on me that I actually had spoken to him before. Some very strong intuition also told me that he had daughters, so I hazarded a guess:

Me: "Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure I've met you before. You have lots of daughters."
Cabbie: "Yes, four"
Me: ""And the youngest two are something like five and seven."
Cabbie: "Yes, five and eight. The youngest one just started school."
Me: "And the older ones are quite older. One's going to Mac uni and another one was looking for work."
Cabbie: "Yes. She found a job."
Etc.

I have no idea which dormant part of my brain had woken up or what shook it out of hibernation, but I was overjoyed with the experience. The driver didn't partake in my excitement and looked rather nervous.

In his defence, I don't suppose it's every day that you're greeted by a frazzled looking stranger who is rattling off facts about your life in a growing state of euphoria. Especially considering that the revelations came directly after talking about how important it is to "wash yourself" with snow if you ever fall into a frozen lake (something I learned from Man vs Wild: Siberia).

In the end I left the cab with an eerie sense of deja vu and a new found confidence in my brain, and the driver of the vehicle probably sped off, picked his girls up from school and had another "stranger danger" talk with them.

On an unrelated note: Morphsuits. I'm speechless.