Taxicab Journals 1/5/07

I was trying to turn around on Lyndale when this guy started clutching at my door handle. He started to open the door and looked at me blankly. I gestured to the passenger side door. He finally stumbled into the car and said, "Follow my friends.. ururgh.."

The only problem I was in the left lane and his friends were running down the block on the right of the street. The headlights were coming fast behind me so I had to sit in the left lane and block traffic while my fare slouched in the back seat drunk outta his mind. A few minutes and I was swerving ahead of a few cars and pulled over to the right. Couple of his buddies bolted... one drunk skunk hopped in.

"We just gotta go around the block..." my drunk fare muttered.

'What?' I thought. I was gonna get pissed this was a horrible fare. We stopped and one dude was out quick but the other dude pulle out a twenty. Shit! I had no change.. the meter was only 4 something.

"5 bucks minimum fare," I said.

"No problem dude," he said "Take it all and pick me up later cuz I gotta go to White Bear. Call me on your cell now so I got your number. 612-324-2695."

I came back a few hours later after calling the guy again and again to make sure he was serious. A fare to White Bear was too hard to resist.

I got to his address about 3am. A yellow cab pulled behind me. Two shadows started for the Yellow... I opened my door and shouted, "This is the cab u ordered!"

I heard someone say, "Didn't we call Yellow?"

I heard my drunk fare say, "No, this is my cab." Thank God his buddy and him came over.

His buddy says, "I just gotta get dropped off in St Paul. It's on the way to White Bear. Cool dude?"

"No problem," I say.


We get on the freeway, and my drunk fare hands me 60 and says, "Take me to my place."

His buddy disagress when he figures I am being paid off to drop his drunk buddy off first.

"No man I don't want to wait in the cab while we come all the way back," he says.

"Take me to White Bear," the drunk fare replies.

"I am not going to get between you two guys," I say.

"Yes, he was a dictator, but he was killed by a death squad."

What was accomplished by hanging Saddam Hussein? Absoulutely nothing. Saddam was powerless and utterly defeated. Killing him did nobody any good. The Death Penalty is not even justified for dictators. If Saddam was on the verge of using a weapon to kill innocents, then killing him would be justified. But killing him now is just plain barbaric. When will the world ever learn?