Category Archives: Taxi Stories

Tales from 188, revisited

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A couple of years back, I was on the reduced side of what HR people call a reduction in force. It took me a while to find anew job, so in the mean time, I drove a cab. Some of my longtime readers will remember that time, but a lot of my newer readers have no idea.

My cab number was 188, and I have to tell you, driving that cab was hard.  It was both a humbling and a growing experience at the same time.  I think that my demeanor today is totally different than it was before I got behind the wheel of that cab.

Anyway, tonight, my girlfriend found my notebook where I wrote down some of the crazy things that happened while I was in that job.  Here are a few excerpts from conversations and situtations that took place in the cab, they are in no particular order:

This was a conversation, I have no idea what “wilson angry” means:

This dude was lobbing pitches, until they got within 2 runs. Then he started throwing knuckle balls. I was like ‘ You can’t throw that pitch!’ then this other dude got “wilson angry” and threw the baseball bat at the pitcher… now the bat thrower thinks he’s a spiritual healer and is ‘self-realized’

Situation that happened: This guy was staring at a girl on the other side of the road, his girlfriend noticed and whacked him in the groin with a magazine. After he recovered the guy said:

“Nice ball skills.”

Situation: This guy got in the cab, and he smelled like vomit, urine and rotting meat. I had to clean off the seats of the cab after he got out.  I drove around for an hour with the windows down to get the smell out. The smell lingered for the rest of the night.

Situation: I had to go get a 600 lb woman that was home bound and take her to the doctor. She was very nice, but smelled awful. I think the smells are what I remember most from driving a cab.

Situation: I was driving a blind girl to work, and during the ride we were talking about how she was learning Japanese. She shared with me that she was having trouble learning to write Japanese, but had no trouble learning how to speak it.  She thought the reason for her difficulty with writing Japanese was caused by her “lack of vision.”

–o–

Anyway, there are more stories in the notebook. Maybe I should compile them together

Other pictures

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Here are some of the other pictures that I took these past couple of weeks. I like to take pictures of architectural features and I especially like angular features and the juxtaposition of old and modern styles.

This is the dorm that I lived in during my second freshman year.

 

I like the way that these tubes looked. It reminds me of this other building in Paris.

 

Angles in a parking garage on campus

City line view

 

Angular condos

 

Old and new juxtaposed

 

I call this picture “Solitude”

 

 

That’s it for now, let me know what you think.

Lack of vision

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The other day, I was giving this blind girl that works at the school for the blind a ride in to work. This is a different person than the one I usually take, but it still begs the whole blind leading the blind question. Anyway, during the ride over, we’re talking about the school, the classes that she is taking in college etc. Turns out, she’s taking Japanese as her foreign language and was sharing that she found writing Japanese to be very challenging, probably due to her “lack of vision.”

I burst out laughing as soon as she finished saying that. I followed my laugh with a “Ya think so?”

She was telling me, between her bursts of laughter, that I was being mean and that I shouldn’t make fun of her disability. I apologized for laughing, and told her that I thought that writing Japanese would be challenging to anyone, but that the way she said that her difficulties were due to her “lack of vision” was just hilarious to me. She was laughing so hard at the whole thing that I really don’t think she was offended at all.

While this whole scene is going on, we drove right past the school for the blind. As soon as I realized I was driving past our destination I mentioned it to her. I apologized for driving past the school and immediately turned the car around.

As I’m turning the car around, I say:

“You know, you could’ve said something to me and told me I was driving past the school.”

To which she replies:

“I would have, had it not been for my LACK OF VISION!”

When we were done with our laugh, she gets out of the car and wants me to give her my cell phone number so she can make sure to call me the next time she needs a ride anywhere. In the end, it turned out to be a really fun ride.