Friday, June 23, 2006
I'm sitting at JFK right now waiting for my flight. The taxi ride from my place to the airport was an adventure! Well, first of all it was really hard to catch a cab. It was Friday afternoon so maybe that's a busy time. The weird thing was all the cabs had their top lights on, usually indicating they're available. But they all had passengers.
I finally did get a cab, and he also didn't switch on the meter. Maybe Friday afternoons all the cabs decide to pocket the fares? He told me there's a lot of traffic so we'll take side streets. I didn't care, I had a newspaper to read and lots of time. Driving through the Lower East Side on Delancey I saw a copy car pass us, stop, and two cops ran out. There was a homeless guy walking around with scissors in his hand and they were standing next to him. Some lady pointed to him and said "he's holding scissors" and then they pounced on the guy, throwing him down. Then one cop ran over to two other people and pulled out his gun and put it right in one guy's face. I've never seen someone actually point a gun at anyone before.
The drive took us through some really scary parts of Brooklyn. I wasn't scared driving around in the cab, but I would never think about being outside walking around. But nothing really bad happened. At one point a giant truck took off the side mirror of a car. The car pulled over in front of the truck and the guy got out, and the truck went around him and took off.
Besides that the taxi driver just drove very aggressively, and complained about his $5 tip. "Dude, the meter wasn't even running" I told him. I didn't care about the $5 tip, he was pocketing all the money anyway.
I think one big reason why I love New York so much is I never have to deal with the stress of driving in the city. And beyond that, I rarely take taxis so I don't usually have to deal with traffic and driving aggression even as a passenger. Oh, and I don't actually work in the city, which seems to be extremely stressful and where people actually get rude and aggressive (because of competition in the workplace and whatnot).
I'll be in California for 10 days!
I finally did get a cab, and he also didn't switch on the meter. Maybe Friday afternoons all the cabs decide to pocket the fares? He told me there's a lot of traffic so we'll take side streets. I didn't care, I had a newspaper to read and lots of time. Driving through the Lower East Side on Delancey I saw a copy car pass us, stop, and two cops ran out. There was a homeless guy walking around with scissors in his hand and they were standing next to him. Some lady pointed to him and said "he's holding scissors" and then they pounced on the guy, throwing him down. Then one cop ran over to two other people and pulled out his gun and put it right in one guy's face. I've never seen someone actually point a gun at anyone before.
The drive took us through some really scary parts of Brooklyn. I wasn't scared driving around in the cab, but I would never think about being outside walking around. But nothing really bad happened. At one point a giant truck took off the side mirror of a car. The car pulled over in front of the truck and the guy got out, and the truck went around him and took off.
Besides that the taxi driver just drove very aggressively, and complained about his $5 tip. "Dude, the meter wasn't even running" I told him. I didn't care about the $5 tip, he was pocketing all the money anyway.
I think one big reason why I love New York so much is I never have to deal with the stress of driving in the city. And beyond that, I rarely take taxis so I don't usually have to deal with traffic and driving aggression even as a passenger. Oh, and I don't actually work in the city, which seems to be extremely stressful and where people actually get rude and aggressive (because of competition in the workplace and whatnot).
I'll be in California for 10 days!