When you are catching a cab in NYC, you have no choice but to subscribe to the Forrest Gump "life is like a box of chocolates" philosophy -- when you hop into one of those bright yellow sedans, you honestly never know what you're going to get.
Yesterday after work, Chet (good friend in town from SoCal) met me outside my office and we hailed a cab to the Upper West Side to grab some dinner. More often than not, cab drivers get your desired coordinates from you when you get in and then they turn their attention back to the cell phone conversation that you interrupted when you hailed them in the first place.
Our luck-of-the-draw cab driver last night was the complete antithesis of this. An Indian man with a strong accent, he must have been a stand-up comedian or entertainer in a former life. Honestly, if he didn't have to keep his hands on the wheel and his eyes [mostly] on the road, I think he would have been doing sleight of hand magic tricks too.
As soon as Chet and I piled in the back seat, he immediately started in about how smart we were to have hailed him on the right side of the street because it made it much easier for him to take us where we wanted to go.
Then he proposes to test us and see which one of us is smarter.
Oh boy, here we go.
His first riddle is for Chet and after a moment of thoughtful consideration, Chet nails the correct answer and impresses the driver (who is deftly weaving through traffic on Amsterdam while sitting half-turned around in his seat, looking back at us). The driver then turns to me and says "Ok, your turn! I always get funny answers from New York girls!" I refrain from explaining that I'm not exactly a "New York girl" and wait for the riddle. Thankfully, I get the answer right and then he finishes his round-robin riddle fest with a question for both of us -- which we both answer and my answer is deemed "interesting" and Chet's is actually deemed "accurate". (I still maintain that fish can indeed drown.)
We were still a few blocks away from our destination, so I said "Hey, I have a question for YOU now. Do you know where someone can catch a good Bollywood movie in this city??"
Achah.
2 comments:
Hey Shari,
All you need to do now is to catch the Cash Cab - it's a game show in a cab that is broadcast on the Discovery Channel. Of course, you might not know that - given your cable situation :)
You're right, THAT would be the ultimate taxi story! I actually just found out that my friend, Sia, was tricked into being on that show -- the lengths that they go to recruit people are pretty funny!
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