cabbie, you suck!

so i capped off my shitshow of a weekend by taking a trip into the outside world (aka palo alto - 5 minutes from campus...this is huge if you don't have a car) and dining at a local sushi restaurant. it was nice - comfortable seating, friendly service. but my friend insisted on taking a cab because she was too sore, hung over, and starving to ride bikes, and since i made the disclaimer that i was broke, which i am, i simply went along for the ride. you know, taxis are pretty cool. there's something about being chauffered around that makes me feel really smug, especially when i'm not paying for it. so we had a nice, somewhat dazed meal, as we were both exhausted from the prior festivities, but on the whole, it was a lovely night out on the quaint little town. lovely late afternoon out on the town would be more appropriate, as we joined our local senior citizens for the early bird special because we were both too impatient to wait much longer to eat, and are both overachievers that had other engagements around the dinner hour.

i'll just cut to the chase. our cab driver on the way back was a douche bag. first of all, i had to wait a few minutes inside the restaurant to retrieve our credit cards because the cashier was a little behind, so my friend ran outside to tell the cab to wait. but no. she races back in a few seconds later to tell me that this cab driver is having a tantrum outside because he's blocking traffic. blocking traffic my ass. true, the street layout in palo alto is comprised primarily of one lane, often one way streets, but let's be honest. this dude was not "blocking traffic" on the little side street next to the sushi restaurant. so when i finally signed for the both of us and grabbed our cards, i frantically raced out the door and dove into the back seat. now this was a nice cab - black, leather interior, tinted windows...the guy scored some points for this. but then he starts taking the long way home. the trafficky way home. what an ass! for as much as he complained about the traffic before...so after heckling us for directions to the campus (note: the campus virtually is the town we were in) he proceeds to completely ignore what we say. yeah. well, perhaps he knew better. but after a series of wrong turns, we started to get angry. i then told him several stop signs in advance, as well as at the stop signs themselves, where exactly to turn. and he still screwed it up! finally, when we pulled up to my residence he came to a screeching halt and sat their silently. we weren't sure quite what to do until he reeled around toward us and shouted, "11 dollars! is that ok? 11 dollars! is that fair?" no it's not ok, you bastard! you drove terribly! but he was quite a scary fellow so we decided to pay up. (yet our new friend did not merit a tip, so we did not give him one. so there.) anyhow, after this whole ordeal - and we were all giving each other bad vibes...he didn't like us either - he had the nerve to give us his business card. what was this excuse for a cab driver thinking? i don't know...

this weekend was good.