A taxing ride
Having woken up really late and needing to be at the office pronto, I found it necessary to take a cab to work yesterday morning. And that experience led to this post, which is also partly inspired by Dianne's (and apparently her clan's) new blog.
Allow me to present exhibits A to D.
Exhibit A is a broken seatbelt, which was among the first broken things that I observed. So inasmuch as I was in a hurry, this was one driver I did not want hurried up. I soon found to both my relief and chagrin (What can I say? It was a mixed emotion.) that he didn't seem to be interested in speed anyway. In fact, he decided to visit a gasoline station with the meter running.
Exhibit B is a rather hazy picture of his instrument panel. You don't need a dSLR photo to figure out that all the gauges are mere decorations. How he could tell that he needed gasoline is totally beyond me. Oh yeah, the photo was hazy because I took it while the car was moving to show you that the speedometer wasn't.
Exhibit C is a photo of his car radio, or where it's supposed to be. I wonder what happened to it seeing as he doesn't mind displaying broken gauges.
Exhibit D is a sticker above the glove compartment right in front of the passenger seat. It reads, "Ambulance hotline: 635-HELP." Yep, not very reassuring, is it?
The driver stuck to a leisurely pace the whole trip. Maybe he was mindful of the high price of gasoline and was trying to save a few pesos. I was really pissed off by the time I got to my destination--so much so that I was happy to leave him stuck in the hospital driveway, which was congested thanks to two armored cars, a few other cabs, and people in wheelchairs.
Smiling smugly, I headed to the elevator. It wasn't until I was halfway there that my satisfaction turned into consternation. My phone wasn't in my pocket! I did a Flash (or as close to it as I possibly could) and managed to get to the cab just before it pulled away. Thank heavens for handicapped people blocking the driveway.
The moral of the story is: don't take a cab if you're late anyway... unless you're going to blog about it.
How can you tell
if the fuel gauge is really broken or not? Maybe it's always kept at near empty.
Ahh...
So he sorta always knows that he needs more fuel. Gotcha!
and I thought I always end up with the worst cabs
this is the definitive TAXI FROM HELL. good find, lad!
Oh and how can I forget?
When he handed me my phone, I could've sworn he was smirking. I couldn't be really sure, but it's as if he knew all along it slid out even before I came bounding down to catch the cab.
Once
Once, a cab driver I hauled almost ran over an old woman.
"But officer,
her wheelchair cut into my lane!"
Hehe... Must've been really scary
I once took on a cabbie who was really sleepy--kept dozing off every stop sign. We almost run into an island that divided the right turners from those who needed to turn left.
He didn't mind you
snapping pictures?
Maybe he did mind
Maybe going extra slow was his passive-aggressive way of showing annoyance :-D
He didn't
Coz he probably didn't realize that I was taking pictures of his cab. The only shot that would have arouse suspicion was me taking a photo of the broken seatbelt, but I did that while he was paying for the gasoline refueling.
What I was...
thinking too. :P Hahahahaha...
Ewww
i have a number of taxi horror stories.
i just realized that majority of the taxi drivers who are annoying are those who have "bulok" taxis lol
Horror stories are fun
Share!
ambulance hotline sticker
haha.. i like the ambulance sticker.. it's better to be prepared right? well.. at least the taxis i have ridden so far have nice drivers. some really talk a lot though.. hehe.. most of the time i just get paranoid watching the taxi meter..
Couldn't you call the ambulance?
You were going to the hospital anyway.
Hahaha
Good point.
Yep, I could've done that
But they charge an arm and a leg... and they insert assortments of stuffs into you... no thanks.
Yep, I've met nice cabbies
Or so I thought, I almost always have to cough up more dough with the same distance somehow.
Let me get this straight
You were taking the pictures with your cell phone and you still left it in the cab?
So when you got out of the cab, bet it was the excitement to blog about it that made you realize the phone is not with you =) ChickenMafia just saved your life! (ok, maybe a few thousand bucks)
More like a single thousand bucks
I don't have a cam phone, I was using a Casio Exilim, my cell phone ain't even worth a couple of thousand bucks.
you should have
contributed your story on our site. LOL! Did the driver bothered to ask you why you are taking photos of his ___ taxi? hehehe!
@micamyx- you should contribute your taxi horror stories at our new site..=)
Go ahead
And add the story to your site, consider this my first contribution hehe :p
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