Everytime I take a cab it's an experience to say the least. When I'm on my way away from home cabs inspire fear and anxiety, fear that I don't know where I'm headed, anxiety I won't have the money to pay for the ride, fear the cabbie won't be legit and will really take me for a 'ride'. When I'm on my way home a cab inspires a great sense of relief. Relief the journey is almost over, and that soon I'll sleep in my own bed again.
Every cab ride I've taken has inspired a story in my head.
Circa 1996 on Andros Island in the Bahamas, we stepped off our puddle jumper onto a strip of concrete next to a small white building. A black Lincoln town car and a Bahamian in a suit and cabbie hat scooted us in and took off like we were on our way to a secret meeting at the BatCave. Driving at least 80 down a curvy potholed one lane road on the English side of the road in an American style car, the ride nearly made me sick as I was pinballed from the shoulder of one parent to the other I was sandwiched between. The black leather seats were so polished my teenage butt slipped and slid about as far across the road as the car itself.
On my 26th birthday when I drank too much too fast and vomited in the cab on my way home from the bar at midnight-- way too early to be headed home from a cab ride on your birthday in Nevada -- I incited the cabbie's rage to a point he threw his cup of tobacco spit on my apartment door before pounding his fist over and over yelling "you stupid girl, you know how much you cost me, a night of cab rides, I should sue you! You cunt!"
In 2008, my first trip to NY, stepping out of the automatic sliding doors with my carry-on luggage I was met by guy "Need a ride? Skip the line." I immediately said yes without registering the long line of people waiting next to the sign that said "Taxi. Please wait behind the line" Into an unmarked minivan I go, asking for the Times Square Marriott. The van has no mileage ticker and he's texting and calling people on his cell phone in a language I don't understand. He flips from one radio station to another, always seeming to end on rap. I've never been in a cab like this, I think. I wonder if he's legit. I wonder if I have enough money to pay. I wonder if I'm going to Times Square. What if he's calling his friend and they are setting up the kill room. I may never get out of this alive. Finally I ask him the cost, he explains there's a set charge from the airport. I think he charged me $65. I find out later it was $20 more than a cab I would have gotten from standing in line and technically he acting out of illegal intents. I'm just happy to be alive.
More recently, my experiences have been a bit less chaotic and I've just met some interesting people. One cab driver who seriously is the doppelganger of Darius Rucker, so much so that the cabbie even remarks that he used to be Darius's caddy and they played a trick at the event by switching places and no one even knew. Who knows if that's true, but I'd like to think it is because now I'm that much closer to the true Darius Rucker.
On the last trip I learned all about Ethiopia. Did you know it really doesn't get that hot there? Maybe 90s, and it's a dry heat. Nothing like the midwest.
I also had cab driver who was a professional Soccer player in Iran and Greece, he must have been 60 so I assume this was many years ago. He moved to Oklahoma to play professional soccer in the US but he didn't realize at the time that you make no money in the States at that profession so now he's a cab driver. But he speaks 6 languages, has a memory as sharp as steel, and has a granddaughter who pokes him with an umbrella.
Ahhh, to be a cab driver, what stories would I tell?
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