Another Taxi Tale of Woe

Anybody who knows me knows that I cannot simply get in a taxi cab and expect to get a pleasant, uneventful ride home. Normally, any taxi that I take is being driven by a mental hospital escapee, a con artist who thinks that I won't notice if he drives from Cambridge to Quebec and back before depositing me in front of my Somerville apartment with a fare resembling the GDP of a developing nation, or an otherwise "OK" but extremely talkative chatterbox.

Here are a few of my more famous taxi cab stories. These tales have entertained friends for years, and I hope you can enjoy them, too.

1. The most famous cab driver was a 3 foot-tall Hispanic man who picked me up in Boston one New Year's Eve. He claimed to have been in Maine earlier in the day. In fact, he claimed to have been "partying like an animal" in Maine for the previous two days. It was well past 3 AM and he was proudly advertising the fact that he hadn't slept in days because of his extreme "partying." Every time he said the word, "partying" he made sure to shoot me a knowing and conspiratorial look in the rear view mirror.

I made the mistake of asking him where in Maine he had been. I figured, if anything, as long as I could keep the conversation giong, the guy might be able to stay awake long enough to get me home in one piece.

He replied that he had been in Portland, hanging out with his girlfriend, Kitty, the stripper. He continued to regale me with the tale of his New Year's Eve celebration cut short by his obligation to drive the taxi in Boston later in the evening. He told me that he had used his cab to transport Kitty and her colleagues, "all scantily clad strippers" to use his words, to their "gig." He also picked them up after the show. Apparently, their various dance routines were met with rousing enthusiasm from the patrons of the bar because, according to my driver, "the girls was all in the back, shakin' and jigglin', all scantily clad and rollin' around in 5 and 10 dollar bills." There was the use of the expression "scantily clad" again.

He went back to the girls' apartment for a "couple drinks" and came out at around 9, preparing for the 3 hour trip to Boston. He was livid to find that his car had been sideswiped by the snow plow, which, incidentally, also left him completely blocked in.

The story went on and on like this and I was treated to a full account of the trials and tribulations faced by this man in his efforts to return to Boston.

Upon my safe return home, I almost called the police. I was pretty convinced this "party animal" was in no shape to drive.

2. About 4 years ago, my German friend, Julia, came to visit. We took a cab home after a night out on the town. The taxi driver asked me if I had been told I looked like anybody famous. Before I had the chance to answer, "no," he shusshed me, saying, "No. No. Don't tell me. Let me figure it out." Again, I was locked in the gaze of the driver through the rear view mirror. At one point, I ventured to say, "Wow, if you paid as much attention to the road as you did to my face, you might even manage to NOT wrap your taxi around a telephone pole." The guy didn't even flinch. He just continued staring at me and pointedly ignoring the road stating, "Not to worry. This isn't my taxi. If I crash it doesn't matter."

Ahh.....??

Anyway, he continued to badger me about this for the next 15 minutes. At some point, he relented his mental exercise of trying to "place" me and said, "OK, sister, tell me. Who do you look like?"

I don't know why I said what I said, but I replied, "Dennis Rodman. Everybody tells me I am a dead ringer for Dennis Rodman. I have fans asking for pictures and autographs and when I try to tell them I'm not Dennis Rodman, they don't believe me. So, inevitably, I end up in photographs of every tourist and sports fan."

Once again, the guy really didn't even react. He stared a little more deeply at me through his mirror and said, "No. I don't see Dennis Rodman. Larry Bird I could definitely see. But not Rodman. No. I'm just not getting Rodman."

Hello!!!???

So, apparently although I could not stand in as a stunt double for Dennis Rodman, I could be easily mistaken for Larry Bird, one of the most unattractive sports legends I can think of.

I guess I brought that one on myself.

There are countless others that go on like this.

3. The third and final incident happened tonight. I was out and I met up with a friend of mine who is a Doctor. We ended up sharing a cab home, and we were having a few laughs in the back seat. The cab driver said something rather witty, and somehow, my reply of, "Well, thank goodness we have a doctor in the house" seemed appropriate.

The guy asked which of us was the doctor and we indicated that my friend is. The taxi driver was friendly enough and hearing my friend's accent, asked where he came from. My friend informed the driver that he is from Italy and the driver celebrated their shared Italian background. Some discussion of gnocci and pesto sauce ensued.

Eventually the conversation fell to how both my friend and I, at different points in our lives, have lived in Germany. The cab driver asked if we spoke German and we both said we did. He further pumped my friend for information about his work and my friend said that although he is a fully qualified practitioner, he prefers to do research in oncology and indeed does so at MIT in the prestigious Whitehead laboratories.

With this, the cab driver reached my friend's house and after dropping him off, we continued on to my place.

The driver pronounced his admiration of my friend's obvious intellectual capabilities and his admiration of his obvious down-to-earth personality. I agreed with all of his praises and even proffered more information to further his argument that my friend is of extraordinary cerebral capacity.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, this grandfatherly taxi driver stated, "Yeah, that's why the white race is running the world." He further went on to say that whites constitute only 10 percent of the world's population, and yet whites dominate every aspect of humanity and learning.

I was just a few blocks from my home at that point. Without arguing, because really, what's the point? I told the driver that the spot we were in was perfect and I could be dropped there.

Yes, I was wearing uncomfortable shoes and it was cold outside. It would have been nice to sit in the cab and ignore the idiot for a few more blocks, but I just really couldn't do it. I reasoned that I could not give money to this idiot. Or at least any more than was already recorded on the meter.

I had to get out of the cab, on principle alone!

I am a teacher of civics and of course my entire month of February is devoted to black history month. How could I be up there in front of the room teaching this stuff and then sit in the cab, saying nothing, and putting food on this jerk's table?

The thing that gets me crazy about people like this is that they shoot their mouths off without the slightest bit of forethought or consideration for anybody around them. What if I were married to a non white man? What if I had non white children or other relatives? What if I, myself, were not white? Sometimes you can't know what a person's "makeup" is just by looking at them.

This stuff really pisses me off.

But here's the thing. I wasn't going to argue and I wasn't going to demand my money back. He had rendered a service and I was prepared to pay, but I was not prepared to further his ability to render service and pocket more of my money, the money I earn by trying to teach people how to be decent human beings. So, in my own quiet way, I sent my own quiet message that I wasn't tolerating his hate speech. He did ask me, "I thought you needed to go to XXXX St." To which I simply replied, "No thanks. I'll walk the rest of the way. Here is fine." I conducted the remainder of my business with him calmly and politely. But maybe he'll get the message.

Probaby not, but I don't have to further contribute to it.





Let's remember this stuff and try not to go back to these days.

Actually, as I sit here looking at this picture, I have to laugh because this taxi driver, who was hard pressed to construct a grammatically correct sentence, was prepared to seriously pit his intelligence agains that of people of other ethnic backgrounds. OK, let me just say now that I want to be there, front and center, when this clown is entering into a contest of intellect with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Even 30 years deceased, Dr. King would run circles around this fool or anybody like him.

Pathetic.

Ok, that's my pontification for the day. More frivolity tomorrow. I promise.