Tuesday, June 28, 2011

A Taxi Story

   Once in the distant past, when I was working in another city, I picked up a guy on an ordinary call, or so I thought.
   When I picked up, I found myself in possession of a very short older gentleman who was dressed a little oddly. 
   He was wearing a pink body stocking cut very low in front, with leggings, pink girly tennis shoes, carrying a purse.
   He himself was about 60, grey hair with blond tips, glitter eye makeup, pink fingernail polish, face makeup straight from the Andy Warhol crowd. 
   In other words, a perfect parody of gay...
   Plus he was stone crazy.  He took a breath before he got in the car and never stopped talking at a high rate of speed the entire trip of almost two hours.
  The gentlemen had decided that "this is a stupid cow town and I just HAVE to go elsewhere", in this case, Oregon. 
   Well, that is a better that respectable trip for a cabbie on a slow day, so I agreed.
   AFTER verifying that he had enough money to cover the trip.  And he did.  LOTS.
   He wanted to go to Medford, which is about $600.00, and I agreed. 
   But when we got on the road, his manic behavior started to degenerate almost into psychotic and I started to get a little worried.
   When he got out at a mini mart to get some water, I surreptitiously check his purse for weapons I couldn't handle, like a gun or taser or something like that.  Nothing.
   Allrighty then, we are on the road. 
   To my taxi driver shame, I got tired of the tirade by the first set of mountains..and started thinking of ways to get rid of the psychopathic burden I had saddled myself with. 
   He helpfully provided me with one, claiming to be running short of money. 
   So, I brightly volunteered that Mt. Shasta was a colorful little tourist town right under the BYOOTIFUL Mt. Shasta, and that cab service would be available from there to go farther north if he so decided.
   For those who don't know, Mt. Shasta IS a beautiful little tourist town located under the shadow of beautiful Mt. Shasta. 
   But Mt. Shasta is also a cow town filled to the brim with real cowboys from the surrounding ranches and farms, and since it was a Friday night I fully expected Mr. Crazy Tutu to have an extremely interesting evening and following day.
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   But, in the taxi business, you get the money and move on to the next fare as quickly as possible.
   That is the nature of it and always has been.
   You can't get involved in all the stories of the naked city, you can just take it in, absorb it, and move on to the next one. 
   As cab drivers have been described as the most intelligent bunch of misfits in the world we are probably the best qualified to notice that sort of thing anyway.  Being generalists, generally, rather than specialists they are not as subject to tunnel vision.
   Also, being "outside observers" mostly, they tend to lack the usual prejudices to their viewpoint.
   Not to say they aren't human and have their own sets of prejudices, tastes, opinions and etc., but mostly they just want to get their money and move on.
   Finally, I do not know if Mr. Tutu is/was/or might be gay.  I don't care either way,  I just know he was definitely having an episode.  Whether with or without medication, again, I don't know. 
   Gay, straight, or Methodist, means nothing to me, money is green, and that is what counts.

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