Courtesy, Cabbies, and an Idiot Girlfriend

I had a wonderful cab ride with a lovely driver tonight. We chatted about life:
God is good.

and good manners:
It’s nice to be greeted in a friendly manner rather than the fare “barking orders and addresses…”

I could picture it:
Driver pulls up, fare jumps in, slams door. Immediately followed by:
“3416 N. Halsted.” and silence.

Later, I meet a girlfriend for drinks and I tell her about this exchange with my friendly cabbie.

She studies her dirty martini and slowly spears her olive with the plastic sword, lifts it out of the glass, she lets it drip once, then slowly dips it back into her mouth… once… twice… then slides it off the sword into her mouth. She chews slowly.

Then she looks at me:

Well… chewing thoughtfully, what do you say when YOU get in a cab?

I create the scenario:
Drivers pulls up. Imagine my smiling face. I get in – with a joke usually.
“Hello sir! Would you take me to 3416 N. Halsted please. Thank you”

My superior friend looks at me incredulously. She licks her index finger and sucks on it noisily.
“Gross” I think to myself and suddenly her eyes narrow and her face morphs into a scowl and she hisses:

Why do you bother saying “please” and “sir” to them? They don’t care! Half the time they smell and don’t even speak English!

My lower jaw drops open. My eyesballs grow huge, the lives of Gandhi, Dr. King and the entire Holocaust plays before my eyes.

???!!!??? I am flabberghasted.

I say to her: Because it’s polite! God, you sound so… racist.

I think to myself: “you fucking ignorant xenophobic racist bitch!”

She laughs, I’m not a racist, but even you have to admit that a lot cab drivers smell bad and don’t speak English and most of them happen to be from… she waves her hand around to finish her sentence with a “you know” expression.

I can’t believe I was friends with her! No wonder she gives blow jobs to olives. She’s a pig!

I shriek out loud:
And who exactly is “them?” And where is… I mimic her hand gesture… And so you’re saying only the drivers who smell good and speak perfect English are worthy of common courtesy?

She throws back the rest of her drink, shrugs and says:
Who cares? They’re fucking cab drivers for God’s Sake! It’s not like I’m talking about Barack Obama!

For a moment, just imagine the expression on my face at this point …

I pause. The people at the table next to us look over. I am embarrassed, outraged and a little sick to my stomach. I really want to run out of the bar. We were having martinis. All was well. Then I thought of the lovely gentleman who drove me to meet this twit and her arrogant dismissal of cabbies – of people of color – and it disgusted me.

Who is this woman? And why am I taking this so personally? But I can neither let it go, nor do I desire to debate the issue. I just want to get away from her ugliness without killing her.

I plan my escape. The server delivers another perfect Cosmopolitan to the table. I took two huge sips and started fumbling in my huge black bag for cash and my cell phone:

Oh My God, I forgot that I had to… I look at my phone. Oh! I didn’t check my voice mail…GOTTA GO!!! Talk to ya later!

Got into a taxi. I greeted the driver with a huge smile. He immediately turned down his music. Immediately, I ask him to turn it up. I love Indian music.

“Hello, I’m going to Barry and Broadway please.”

Okay Miss. The music is okay?

Of course, thank you for asking sir.

Oh, you’re a very nice lady. God bless you.

This was before I tipped him.

Sure you can argue that there are some cab drivers who are mean or disrespectful or horrid. When you get into a cab you are getting into a car with an individual person with feelings who deserves, at the very least, some common courtesy. I have to say, in over ten years of riding in cabs, I have had only a handful of bad drivers. And I ride all the time.

I have a lot of friends and not all of them are ignorant, xenophobic, racist, arrogant, bitches either. There you have it. It really is much easier to be kind to your fellow human. But then that does require that you consider them worthy of… consideration.

…”The world is filled with fools” …Maude Jordan

…”You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar!” …Maude Jordan

Amen to that Mama! Amen to that.