That clever Somali cab driver.

[Stinky The Clown]

(This is intended as a positive story. No doubt there are ways to parse it otherwise and if you wish to do that, knock yourself out. The story is true and it happened just yesterday.)

I was out of town yesterday. It was late in the afternoon and I was making my way back to the airport. My client had called a cab for me. I went outside to wait and cab approached. I flagged him. He stopped. I got in - just in time to hear, on the cab's radio, the call go out to another cab to pick me up! Oh well. My guy was faster.

I tell him where I want to go. He acknowledges. He starts cabbiechat. I'm almost always up for cabbiechat. It is usually inane, but usually good for a laugh. I engage, even as I am checking my Blackberry.

He eventually gets around to the pretty much pro forma question of where I'm from. "New York?" he asks, as many do, given my Fairfield County, CT accent. "No. DC." I usually say that rather than Baltimore cuz I've learned that saying your from Baltimore always gets followed up by asking how often I get into DC. So I have learned to save that step and go right to the (cabbiechat) chase.

"DC?" He asks. "Yeah." I answer.

"It has really changed there lately, hasn't it?" That caught me off guard. It wasn't the next line on my copy of the Cabbiechat Script I had been using. I put down the Blackberry.

"How so?" I ask. Not challengingly, but more curiously.

"The last eight years. Very bad. I am from Africa. I even thought about going back. Maybe to Uganda or Kenya ...... " His voice trailed off, his eyes in the mirror, watching for my reaction.

I smile broadly and I watch his face. It lit up with an 'I found a kindred soul' look. (We are in the capitol city of a VERY red Southern state).

"Bush?" I ask. "Yes. George DoubleYoo Boosh." he spits.

"He should be in prison." I say. He laughs and agrees.

"Where are you from?" I ask. "I am from Somalia. But since six months I am a US citizen!"

"So, I guess you're happy about Obama?" I ask him laughingly. "Oh yes. I only wish I was a citizen then so I could have voted for him."

We talk about Somalia. Pirates. Rednecks. His brother-in-law in Arlington, VA and his several visits to the DC area. The cab ride took, it seemed, 2 minutes.

He was a nice man.

And very clever at finding out the political bent of his passengers. I LIKE that in a person.

[sazemisery]

1. Always fun to find a kindred spirit. n/t

[Patiod]

2. I've learned more about African history and politics from cab drivers

Most all of whom HATE Bush.

But you're right - they poke around a little first to see if you're and R or a D, so as not to endanger their tip.

[conscious evolution]

4. I got a cabbie to talk once

by tapping out on the seat a drum rythym from his home country.You should have seen the look on his face when he realized what I was doing.
It was the first and only time I ever got a free cab ride.

[Stinky The Clown]

6. On a trip to this same client some months ago, I stiffed the cabbie .......

..... who talked to me about Jesus the whole way from the airport to the client's office. Where yesterday's trip was two minutes, that one was two hours.

I gave him a tip: "Don't talk about Jesus to your fares."

[Patiod]

7. I've done that with cabbies who chat on the phone the whole time

and I've said "the signs in your cab even say you shouldn't be talking on the cell phone and driving". Answering dispatch is one thing, chatting to your cousin in Banglor for 20 minutes without letup is another.

I had one guy talking on the phone AND FILLING OUT PAPERWORK FOR SOME PROPERTY HE WAS BUYING while he was exiting the Queens Midtown Tunnel at top speed (which is harrowing even when the cabbie is not on the phone AND filling out paperwork).

One guy I did tip well told me how he had an LA Times reporter in his cab, and he asked her "how come everything you reporters write about going to war with Iraq is positive?" (this was right at the beginning of the Iraq war). And he claims she told him "because the higher-ups won't publish anything negative about the war - if I do write anything negative, it never sees the light of day." Turns out years later we find out my cabbie buddy was right on the money on that one. He also said he had given rides to Bush Sr.'s SS detail, and they said the old man was losing sleep over Jr.'s performance in office - not exactly Top Secret shocking info, but damned funny. I gave that cabbie a HUGE tip - best entertainment value out there!

I actually talk religion a lot to cabbies, but it generally stays more in a geo-political context (why his country is being town apart by different sects fighting one another), or a loco-political one ("The Muslim drivers all stick together against us American drivers, and they cheat their fares"). Fortunately, no conversion attempts yet.

[mrbarber]

3. He spit?

That's awesome. I picked up that habit from some of my Italian relatives.

[BrklynLiberal]

5. A good cabdriver is as priceless find