TAXI!

Okay, one more. Although this site is worryingly bagging 300+ individual hits per day, no one dines to leave a comment. It’s not that I’m vain or anything (well ok I am but that’s not the point here so stop pointing at the screen shouting “you are, you bloody are“) but it’d be nice occasionally for someone to comment “thanks, your transparent attempt to boost a shallow ego through the medium of vanity publishing has made me realise why the Internet is such a pointless place to spend my time, and I’m off to save the world instead“. Or something.

I suffered two cab journeys last night, the combined mileage of which would have easily ushered me home without the tedious intermediary of a train trip. The first ride was from a restaurant in East London to Marylebone. Well that’s what I thought anyway but due to a little cultural confusion, the driver instead motored round in ever decreasing circles before attempting to deposit me at Mile End.

Thank the Lord I was not in a my lamposted state of Wednesday otherwise who knows the probably violent consequences of wandering drunkenly around East London slurringly requesting directions to a station some ten miles away. Anyway back to the plot, the reason the driver was confused became apparent “ he didn’t know where Marylebone Station was and wondered if I could possibly help him out. I couldn’t on the dual grounds of a. East London is a lost city to me and I’d expect a map of the area to warn Here Be Dragons” and b. he’s the bloody taxi driver, that’s his job, I wasn’t asking him to look out of the window and make the odd pithy comment was I? No, because that’s my job. I made it plain that the opportunity to job share was of no interest to me so instead we drove around this great city of lights for all the time it took to miss two trains.

Eventually because we been everywhere and with a surge of pattern recognition, we found ourselves in the general vicinity of the correct station. I abandoned the taxi after a short yet terse negotiation on the cost of the trip. It seemed financially imprudent of me to reward the fella for driving twenty miles of which 10 were in the wrong direction. A point I made quite forcefully bringing to bear a timely metaphor combing carpets and wolverines that I shall not bore you with here.

Racing into the station without feeling more than lightly mugged, I struggled onto the drunken express and marvelled at the snoring capacity of the drinking classes. I’m not sure they all wanted to finish their journey in Birmingham but it seemed cruel to wake them to check.

A second taxi was booked to complete this mammoth trip. Unfortunately, two of the most vacuous women on the planet had booked the same one. In the unwritten law of shared taxi rides, their destination was diametrically opposite to mine and “ of course “ that’s the way we went.

What followed was 10 minutes of express train drivel and trivia delivered at high volume punctuated occasionally by a drain based laughing reminiscent of fingers down a blackboard. Finally this tirade of nonsense hit the buffers when they were disgorged still prattling on but blissfully leaving the taxi in silence.

Except the driver decided to take on the mantle of let’s see how much we can annoy Alex tonight. I think with a little more effort, we can push him right over the edge“. I terminated a monologue on who exactly he’d had in the back of his cab with a simple yet cutting the problem with people today is that they’ve forgotten the value of silence“. He shut up, sulked and drove on.

All would have been well had my home address been any part of our conversation. Since it hadn’t and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the silence, there was the very great possibility we may have continued to travel east until we hit the Urals. Eventually my nerve broke and he responded with a monetary demand that I wittily observed was in fact a budgetary figure to irrigate all of Africa rather than a more modest fair to travel ten miles albeit four of them in the wrong direction.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me why I ride my bike. Otherwise I’d be forced to murder people for the non crime of being bloody annoying”

2 thoughts on “TAXI!

  1. I prefer to walk home from drunken evenings out rather than risk taxi drivers hereabouts. I live a mile and a half from town, so I’d rather walk than be scammed the best part of a tenner for the privelege.

    And such shameful comment whoring, tsk.

  2. alex

    I am trying to smoke ’em out. once you think you’re being stalked by weather your paranoi knows no bounds 🙂 but yes I am.

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