I officially have the most elaborate “freedom” scheme in Singapore. I’m now a PHV driver just to get away from my wife for 4 hours a night.
I think I’ve reached peak “Singaporean Husband” levels of desperation. My wife is a great person, but she is the ultimate micromanager. If I’m home, I’m being “assigned” tasks. If I’m on my phone, I’m “not present.” If I want to go for a beer with my kakis, it’s a 45-minute interrogation about who is going, how much I’m spending, and why I need to “waste time.”
So, I did the only logical thing: I became a “part-time” Grab driver.
I didn’t just lie about it—that’s amateur. I went full “Method Acting.” I spent the weeks “studying” for my Vocational License (PDVL). I actually went for the medical checkup. I paid for the PDVL course and sat through the test. I even went to the LTA-authorized center to get the blue and white PHV decals pasted on my front and back windscreens.
The best part? I upgraded my car insurance to the commercial PHV tier. It cost me an extra $800 a year, but it’s the best “Freedom Tax” I’ve ever paid.
Now, every Friday and Saturday night at 9:00 PM, I put on my “working” face, tell her, “Sigh, the surge pricing is good tonight, I better go out and earn some extra cash for our December Japan trip,” and I bail.
What do I actually do? I drive my car to the high floors of multi-storey so she will think my car is gone. Then I take a bus to a quiet industrial estate or a far-flung coffee shop in Jurong, meet my two best friends (who are also “working”), and we just sit there drinking Tiger and talking rubbish for three hours. Other times when I don’t drink I just sit in the car with the AC on, watching Netflix in total silence. No “can you help fix the shelf?” No “why is the toddler still awake?”.
It’s not about running away my responsibilities. Sometimes I just want to have some peace, nothingness, no sound. Quiet.
But of course not everytime I do this, I sometimes actually drive to cover the additional insurance cost and also show some banking records that Grab is actually paying my money so incase my wife checks my i-banking app.
I’ve never felt more relaxed. My wife thinks I’m a hardworking “hustler” contributing to the family funds. I think I’m a genius who just bought back his soul for the price of an insurance rider and a decal.
TL;DR: Got my PDVL and PHV stickers just so I have a bulletproof excuse to escape the wife and drink late at night. The hustle is real, but the “work” is fake.