There were three different neon pink cups on the table. All different, but all pink. A champagne flute, a flamingo highball, and something unironically Barbie. Pink was the theme. We all wore pink, the three of us ladies, for a night out in Scotland’s sunniest city—Bonnie Dundee. Of course, we started in the only place that matters: a mum’s kitchen table, with tropical mixer, questionably aged spirits, and the age-old Hawaiian Pizza debate.
My pal Lucy was popping frozen Cherry Sourz from a silicone tray, dropping them into the concoctions. Sophie was digging for grenadine at the back of the cupboard, while I was moaning about work in the morning.
“Dinnae be drinkin’ on an empty stomach,” Lucy’s mum called through, over the crackle of 00s pop circus coming from the wireless speaker.
Nae danger, we were already handfuls-deep into a bowl of fizzy cola bottles. But mums know about these things, so I picked off the pineapple and saved it for dessert.
“Should we book a taxi?” Lucy said mid-blunt song skip.
“Yeah, might be busy,” Sophie said.
It wouldn’t be, but we always said that.
“What’s the number?”
“204020,” I said. I remembered it from years ago, that jingle on the radio. I’d called it — twenty-forty-twenty — about a million times before the app came out.
Lucy tapped it in.
The line rang for a while.
She rolled her eyes at the delay.
“Do it on the app,” Sophie suggested.
Lucy gave us the look. The shut-it one.
“Oh, hi. Can we please have a taxi from XXX to... yeah, a taxi, from XXX to the town?”
We were giggling in the background, as expected.
“Right. Okay, thanks. Yeah — bye.” She hung up. “That was weird, but it’s coming. Twenty minutes.”
“Aw, I need to use the straighteners!” Sophie said, looking frazzled in the toaster. “Clare, do you have mascara?”
“Weird how?” I asked. “Yeah, but it’s a bit dried out.” I unzipped it and sent it rolling across the table.
“It was an old wifey. She kept sayin’, ‘Taxeh? Taxeh?’” Lucy was howling about it. “Oh, eh, I’ll get ye a taxeh. Nae bother. Oan its way.”
We had a wee dance to keep us busy. Took turns topping up our face-paint with pink glitter and collective cosmetics. Then, as usual, we got to talking about people from school, and so-and-so, who was going out with Sophie’s ex, Dean, this week.
“Are yous no going?” Lucy’s mum said, craning her head round the door. “I’m wantin’ to watch the telly without all that noise.”
“The taxi’s not here yet.”
“How long’s it been?” I asked.
Lucy double-tapped her phone. “Twenty-two minutes.”
“That’s shocking,” Sophie said. “Must be dead busy.”
“Oh, for— I need to call them back.”
“204020,” I said.
“Ah ken!”
We turned the music down. She was getting ready to shush us again.
“Hi, yeah, I ordered a taxi a while ago and it was meant to—yeah—right. Ok, perfect, thank you.”
“Apparently, they’re coming. Let’s wait outside. We can take pictures.”
“Buzzin’.”
We posed, snapped, reviewed, changed angles, and snapped again. Then we sat in a row on the front step, looking out to the street. It was a nice night. Good lighting.
Over the next fifteen minutes, we were like a bunch of grannies over a late bus. Shockin’. Unacceptable. I’m reportin’ this.
I suggested we call another company.
“Just do it on the app,” Soph said.
“No, cause what if the first one shows up? That would be an absolute minter if three showed up at the same time. I’m calling them back.”
Moments later.
“They’re not picking up.”
“Did you dial the right number?”
She pulled the phone from her ear. “Twenty-forty-twenty. Yeah.”
She paused.
Then it clicked.
“Hi. Sorry, but we've been waiting a while now and—what?”
She hit speaker, wide-eyed.
“Did she sound like this?” a man said, then pitched up his voice, “YA WANTIN A TAXEH?”
“Yeah…”
“You know that was Jim and Tam on the radio?”
No.
“Right.”
We died. Soph was clutching her chest, folded over, flailing on the floor.
“And you kept calling back?”
“Well, my friend insisted this was the right number.”
“HA-HA-HA” came from all angles through the phone. My belly ached, and my eyes streamed with laughter. This was my fault.
“Are we on the radio now?”
“Aye.”
“Is this anonymous?” she asked, hopeful, through the wheezing in the background. “Don’t reveal who we are.”
“That’s a screamer, by the way,” he said, all too happy to broadcast our stupidity across Tayside.
Then he boomed, “Can we get these lassies a bloomin’ taxi!”
Lucy was laughing then too, loud, on the inhale.
“Look, I cannae get you a taxi, so I’m gonna let you go so you can get a taxi.”
Yes, it was embarrassing. Mortifying. But there was no reason to stay in and hide our faces. It was the radio, after all.
Soph booked and confirmed another one (on the app). And of course, we had to tell the driver all about it. To him, we were mad. We were dying laughing about the whole thing.
“It was Clare’s fault!”
“I swear I called that a million times!”
“That’s mental,” he said, clearly wanting us to pay and get out. He didn’t get it.
When we made it out, the place was dead, but it didn’t slow us down. We danced to ABBA, had a drink. Laughed and laughed and laughed. It was typical. So ridiculously, classically us. Exactly the kind of impossibly stupid shenanigans we always ended up in. That’s our friendship for you.
The next morning at work, I was worse for wear and just trying to sip my tea in peace when another pal slid over, phone in hand.
“Was that Lucy on the radio?”
She hit play. I couldn’t believe it. We were that obvious.
Of course it was us. A trio of absolute belters on the airwaves.