Taxi Cab Confessions

So I switched cab companies over the summer. I had be going with Checker since they started the "VIP" program... that's the one where they initially handed out actual cards you could show when getting in that would get you 50 cents off your fare, then since no one actually kept the cards you could just say the word VIP and get the same discount. This essentially devolved to be the basic fare (was anyone not a VIP?) However you sliced it Checker was the cheapest cab going circa about two years ago.

When the gas prices spiked last year fares rose in sympathy and so the price of a cab from downtown to campus went from $5.50 to $6.50. My assumption was, based on infrequent non-Checker cab interactions, that everyone had put up fares... so I stuck with my VIP-loving buddies.

However late this Spring I grabbed a cab from King's Place to uptown and noted that the fare was less than I expected. What I eventually discovered was that after the gas prices slumped back to under a dollar a litre most cab companies had lowered their fares where as Checker hadn't... making them now the most expensive cab ride in town (as far as I know... and I don't know much).

With a new cab company comes new cab drivers with new stories and new mannerisms... and while there have been a few quirky ones my favourite to date was the one I rode with a week ago. Firstly this new cab company (that I won't name in an effort to minimize any embarassment) seems to have some stake in employing, shall we say... LARGE drivers... and I've seen some large cabbies in my time. This particular driver had all of the drive-through gourmands beat by far... to the point where he was obviously unable to buckle the van's seatbelt. This was made glaringly apparent by the warning chime that would go off every... five... seconds. The ten minute ride nearly drove me bonkers making me wonder why a full shift hadn't reduced him to poo flinging... again as far as I know it hadn't, but.... The other factor was, after finding out I was going to campus, how he volunteered without any prompting... "You wouldn't know it to look at me but I had a 3.3 GPA." Aside from the fact no one asked is the other fact that 3.3 isn't exactly a stellar GPA... not at bragworthy levels at least. This opening claim was followed, again unprovoked, by a list of all the politicians that had shaken his hand (Brian Mulroney, Shawn Graham, Steven Harper... again all underwhelming brushes with celebrity). Between all the binging and "bragging" and namedropping I was glad to finally get out of the cab. But what occurred to me a little later, as the echoing of the seatbelt alarm finally subsided, was that he was never actually leading to a point about anything... it was truly pure storytelling. Bravo.