Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Santa Claus in a Cab
6.15pm at the bus-stop on Michigan and Walton. Cold, miserable, had to stay at work 20 minutes later than planned, just missed two buses for talking to Alex outside the building. Took out Los Angeles magazine from my bag, got annoyed at myself -- why did I bring with me a magazine I'd already finished reading the night before?
Cab pulls up, rolls down the window. "Two bucks takes you up the bus route." Two women at the crowded bus-stop nudge forward and hop into the cab. Two bucks to start heading home right now, all the way up Lake Shore Drive, no stopping till we get to Addison. Sold. I squeezed in, almost lost the day's crossword in the ske-shuffle.
We chitter chattered in the cab, four people and a Uruguayan cabbie who didn't know each other but just wanted to get home quick, and one of us would get paid $8 for it. The cabbie does this every evening going back to Rogers Park -- he likes the company, he says, after a day of ferrying around people who only talked into their cell phones. In the mornings he does the same thing -- cruise by Belmont and Sheridan and asks if people want to skip the 145 and take the express express downtown.
What's the difference between a cabbie, a priest and a psychiatrist, the cabbie wanted to know. Don't know? Well, he said, you see the same priest and psychiatrist all the time, but you see the same cabbie just once.
Well, my Chi-town is a really small city even if it does have big shoulders. So see ya tomorrow, buddy. Same time, same place.
Cab pulls up, rolls down the window. "Two bucks takes you up the bus route." Two women at the crowded bus-stop nudge forward and hop into the cab. Two bucks to start heading home right now, all the way up Lake Shore Drive, no stopping till we get to Addison. Sold. I squeezed in, almost lost the day's crossword in the ske-shuffle.
We chitter chattered in the cab, four people and a Uruguayan cabbie who didn't know each other but just wanted to get home quick, and one of us would get paid $8 for it. The cabbie does this every evening going back to Rogers Park -- he likes the company, he says, after a day of ferrying around people who only talked into their cell phones. In the mornings he does the same thing -- cruise by Belmont and Sheridan and asks if people want to skip the 145 and take the express express downtown.
What's the difference between a cabbie, a priest and a psychiatrist, the cabbie wanted to know. Don't know? Well, he said, you see the same priest and psychiatrist all the time, but you see the same cabbie just once.
Well, my Chi-town is a really small city even if it does have big shoulders. So see ya tomorrow, buddy. Same time, same place.
// posted by Desiree @ 10:27 PM 
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