Allow me to share with you the weirdest and most revolting taxi experience I've ever had.
8:30 PM Central Time, Dallas Fort-Worth airport, Terminal E. I should've known I was stepping into a janky-ass cab when the trunk wouldn't close despite repeated forceful downward pushes. After about a minute of ill-executed karate chop-esque attempts at closing the trunk of his car, the cab driver retrieved a hammer out of his glove compartment, scurried to the back, pounded away at something, closed the trunk, and made a joke about it to me as he got back into the driver's seat and casually tossed the hammer into the passenger's seat.
An alarm bell may or may not have gone off at that point - "are cab drivers supposed to saunter around with hammers out in the open like that?" - but I figured I could outrun the guy if he decided he wanted to kill me with a blunt object, so I did my thing and kept my eye out for any weird signs during the car ride. There weren't any until I'd arrived at the Residence Inn and fished my wallet out of my backpack. The total came to $57-something. I told him to add $11 as I handed him my credit card.
A minute of fumbling around in the dark yielded the carbon copy paper on which to imprint my credit card information. Another two passed before he was able to find a new bag of ball point pens. With the assistance of his teeth, he was able to awkwardly rip it open and procure a writing utensil.
It took ten seconds after that for him to realize he'd lost my credit card.
I realized something was wrong as soon as I heard the nervous giggle. "...ahem...heh heh...ma'am...?" That's when I peered into the front seat and saw it. Saw it all, I should say; a discombobulation of napkins, broken glasses, water bottles, bandanas, wrappers, tissues, receipts, magazines, bottle caps, gloves, rubber bands, notepads, pen caps, books, and God knows what else. It was all junk, and it was piled in little heaps, an organized chaos that had Big-Banged itself in the front of this guy's taxi. And somewhere, in all of it, my gray little Chase United credit card had slipped out of view.
The taxi driver was taking his time. He searched all his pockets - pulling out wads of twenties, gum wrappers, coins, and more random slips of paper that tumbled to the ground - and then started picking things out of the car one by one and examining them like it was the first time he'd seen them, muttering madly to himself and occasionally giving me that nervous giggle. I wasn't sure whether or not I should interfere, so I remained quiet and let him search, but boy was it was pitiful to watch and then it grew painful as he started looking in places where the card was obviously not located, like in the car's glove compartment (???). Frustrated, I started making suggestions of places to look. When he seemed totally lost, I turned on my phone's flashlight feature and started pawing through the mess and looking too, which he didn't seem to mind. It felt weird and not at all sanitary to pick through this stranger's things, but I was intent on getting my credit card back. Eventually, I found the card wedged deep in the crack between the driver's seat and the middle island where the gear shifter knob was located. The driver offered offered one apology... and then had the gall to add the $11 tip despite having had his customer look for her credit card in his pigsty of a taxi for twenty minutes.
The experience was disgusting, pathetic, and left me totally grossed out. I'm no neat freak but I don't understand how people can live in that kind of filth either, especially when their job is to provide others the sort of service where basic sanitation and cleanliness are baseline expectations. I snapped a picture of the driver's seat that doesn't do the mess justice but you can start to see the chaos creeping in:
I guess the silver lining to this episode is that I'll know never to disrespect myself or my things to that level. I can be a total airhead sometimes about misplacing my things, but the day I let myself become that slovenly - especially when on the job - is the day when I renounce society, tattoo the lyrics to "Tik Tok" onto my face, and rampage off into the sun setting in the east.
8:30 PM Central Time, Dallas Fort-Worth airport, Terminal E. I should've known I was stepping into a janky-ass cab when the trunk wouldn't close despite repeated forceful downward pushes. After about a minute of ill-executed karate chop-esque attempts at closing the trunk of his car, the cab driver retrieved a hammer out of his glove compartment, scurried to the back, pounded away at something, closed the trunk, and made a joke about it to me as he got back into the driver's seat and casually tossed the hammer into the passenger's seat.
An alarm bell may or may not have gone off at that point - "are cab drivers supposed to saunter around with hammers out in the open like that?" - but I figured I could outrun the guy if he decided he wanted to kill me with a blunt object, so I did my thing and kept my eye out for any weird signs during the car ride. There weren't any until I'd arrived at the Residence Inn and fished my wallet out of my backpack. The total came to $57-something. I told him to add $11 as I handed him my credit card.
A minute of fumbling around in the dark yielded the carbon copy paper on which to imprint my credit card information. Another two passed before he was able to find a new bag of ball point pens. With the assistance of his teeth, he was able to awkwardly rip it open and procure a writing utensil.
It took ten seconds after that for him to realize he'd lost my credit card.
I realized something was wrong as soon as I heard the nervous giggle. "...ahem...heh heh...ma'am...?" That's when I peered into the front seat and saw it. Saw it all, I should say; a discombobulation of napkins, broken glasses, water bottles, bandanas, wrappers, tissues, receipts, magazines, bottle caps, gloves, rubber bands, notepads, pen caps, books, and God knows what else. It was all junk, and it was piled in little heaps, an organized chaos that had Big-Banged itself in the front of this guy's taxi. And somewhere, in all of it, my gray little Chase United credit card had slipped out of view.
The taxi driver was taking his time. He searched all his pockets - pulling out wads of twenties, gum wrappers, coins, and more random slips of paper that tumbled to the ground - and then started picking things out of the car one by one and examining them like it was the first time he'd seen them, muttering madly to himself and occasionally giving me that nervous giggle. I wasn't sure whether or not I should interfere, so I remained quiet and let him search, but boy was it was pitiful to watch and then it grew painful as he started looking in places where the card was obviously not located, like in the car's glove compartment (???). Frustrated, I started making suggestions of places to look. When he seemed totally lost, I turned on my phone's flashlight feature and started pawing through the mess and looking too, which he didn't seem to mind. It felt weird and not at all sanitary to pick through this stranger's things, but I was intent on getting my credit card back. Eventually, I found the card wedged deep in the crack between the driver's seat and the middle island where the gear shifter knob was located. The driver offered offered one apology... and then had the gall to add the $11 tip despite having had his customer look for her credit card in his pigsty of a taxi for twenty minutes.
The experience was disgusting, pathetic, and left me totally grossed out. I'm no neat freak but I don't understand how people can live in that kind of filth either, especially when their job is to provide others the sort of service where basic sanitation and cleanliness are baseline expectations. I snapped a picture of the driver's seat that doesn't do the mess justice but you can start to see the chaos creeping in:
I guess the silver lining to this episode is that I'll know never to disrespect myself or my things to that level. I can be a total airhead sometimes about misplacing my things, but the day I let myself become that slovenly - especially when on the job - is the day when I renounce society, tattoo the lyrics to "Tik Tok" onto my face, and rampage off into the sun setting in the east.
