Best Cab Story EVER!!!!

My friend Tina e-mailed me with her awesomely-awesome taxi story about her experience returning home from 42nd Street to Brooklyn. It may seem long, but it DOES include a cabbie with a bloody nose... so I suggest setting aside some time to read this:

"You will not believe my cabbie story!!

After a harrowing trip to 42nd street yesterday afternoon, my coworker John and I decided to leave together at about 4 pm and split a cab to Brooklyn. He lives in Bayridge. We walked down 42nd towards the FDR and were lucky enough to catch a cab that was going off-duty to Brooklyn. I said I needed to go just over the bridge; John said he just needed to get into Brooklyn.

P.S. John's a bit odd...maybe a bit of a...loose cannon.

So we're driving along and John says he needs to go to Bayridge. The cabbie says "No, I'm going off duty to Coney Island. I have to give this cab to my partner." John says "No, you're not going to leave me 7 miles from my house." They argue and the cabbie points at John and says "You can't change your destination, I am not going to Bayridge!" John says "Don't point your fucking finger at me or I'll break it off!" They keep yelling and John grabs his finger and bends it backwards and says "I'll break your fucking finger off..." blah blah blah ..

The cabbie pushes him off and John fucking PUNCHES THE CABBIE IN THE FACE while we are driving. The guy slams on the brakes and John jumps out and opens my door for me to get out. And I'm like hell no, I don't even fucking know this guy and he just punched dude in the face! So I stay in and he says "fine" and walks away.

The cabbie is sort of shocked and keeps saying "I don't know why he punished me in my face! This never happen to me!!" And I'm sympathizing and explaining I don't really know John and I'm sorry and he's bleeding a little and does he need help. So we're going down the FDR and suddenly the guy's like "I'm out of control! I'm driving but I'm out of control!" Then he's like "What just happened? Where am I? Where are we going? I'm out of control! Out of control!"

(It was at this point I ask her why she didn't get out of the cab.)

"I was on the FDR! I couldn't get out!"

(Okay! Relax. Finish your story.)

"So he calls 911 and tells them what happened, but his English sucks and he's, you know, out of control. He hands the phone to me and asks me to talk to them and i'm just thinking "What the fuck?" We get in the lane to pull off and we're in it for a good 20 minutes, and the whole time he keeps asking where we're going and what happened and if I called 911 yet.

He keeps saying: "I'm driving but out of control! God sees, or else we'd be dead right now! He's driving the car or else we'd be in the water!"

He calls his partner and talks to him in some chadian language that sounds like "Njofhoj jopfjpewk out of control! Jiojwiojio out of control out of control!" Finally he says "Forget it, I'll take you home, your time is important."

Anyway, he takes me somehow to the West Side Highway and somehow through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and leaves me in Red Hook, I have no idea where I am, and I find a guy in a DJ equipment truck who gives us directions to a street I can walk home from. I tell the directions to the driver and he says oh that's too far and I'm so exasperated I just get out and slam the door and start walking.

The DJ equipment guy honks and says he's going that way; he'll drive me. I take the ride since I have no idea where I am, I'm in the middle of warehouses and desolation. So he drives me for like half an hour and he's super nice (Nigel, from Trinidad, two kids) and he dropped me on Atlantic Ave. and I walked the rest of the way, getting home at about 7:30. THEN, John calls me to make sure I got home okay, and I was like uh...yeah. THANKS."

No, thanks to YOU, Tina for relaying your alarming and emotional journey.I really hope that John kid gets what he deserves in life, which is a swift kick in the crotch.

You're a Slave No More ...

Oh sweetie, I feel you. When you were taking a Bic to your head like Frida, you're allllmost there. Alllmost. But fear not, my beloved Brit! This is a good break. Its called a breakdown, and in the long run, you'll find it far more preferable to continuing on in your current roles as paycheck, vicarious source of self esteem, and doormat to all.

It boggles the mind to think of how much money those Britney Spears Mega Machine locks represented, how many times your users twisted them this way and that for profit, extending them, bleaching them, cutting them - all because market research suggested it. How many times did K-Fed run his dirty-digger fingers through them? Surely enough for the bundle to be considered hazardous material. Ewwwww.

But now they're gone. What a spectacular "fuck you" to society ... couldn't have done it better if I tried. Hopefully you're smart enough to understand the shearing as the metaphor its meant to be, and do the real shearing required to get any semblance of a life back. Leave your gut-sucking, white trash family, loser Fresno ex-hubby and money-grubbing manager behind like your over-dyed clippings of hair cast to the floor of a salon for some broom girl (or Perez Hilton) to pick up and sniff obsessively.

Now run ... run far away. In fact, run straight to Neil Strauss' house and tell him everything, so he can put it into one of his gorgeous biographies, and be sure to pick up some Kombuchi tea on your way there, because your liver fucking needs it. Oh, and while you're at it, please re-cover Joan Jett's "I love Rock and Roll" 'cause you were never really that hard-core in the first place, but something tells me you are now, you bald-as-fuck, carpet-munching, finger-flipping bitch.

I love you more than ever.

Actually, I never really liked you, but I do now.

Wintery Humiliation

The only good thing about these horrifc winter snow storms is the opportunity to witness moments such as these:

Victim #1

WHEN: 8:32am
WHERE: Queen Subway Station - Northbound Train
THE VICTIM: 5'10" male. Approximately 35. Brown hair. Glasses.
NATURE OF FALL: Victim rushed the doors as they were closing. Floor was slick. Full-on slippage followed. For a second, victim was airborne and totally parallel to the train floor. Landed on back.
POSSIBLE CAUSES: Converse shoes. Poor time management. Hubris.
I WAS LEFT FEELING: Anxious. Empty. Like I should call someone just to say 'I love you'

Victim #2

WHEN: 3:30pm
WHERE: Yonge Street - Outside Starbucks
THE VICTIM: 4'11" Female. Brown hair. Wanna-be Diva.
NATURE OF FALL: Victim pitched forward unexpectedly, knees sunk into a patch of snow that was suspiciously beige. Wee little hands clutching an extra long cigarette followed. Victim emitted a jagged peal of self-conscious laughter into her cell phone, a clear indication she was crying on the inside.
POSSIBLE CAUSES: Non-hemmed Citizens of Humanity jeans. Adorable little pointy shoes had style yet lacked traction.
I WAS LEFT FEELING: Gleeful. Then guilty. Then an oddly pleasurable combination of both...


Two falls in one day and that's not even including the killer drunken wipe-out's I saw last night at our company party .... Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Chop Stix

I was out for drinks with my friend last week and she was telling me about her cousin who is getting married at the end of the month .... Apparently, she and her cousin don't really see eye to eye and she was complaining about how her cousin had recently changed her Vietnamese name, Chin, to Ashley because it's a little more "common". My friend suspects that she only did this because she wants her name to "match" her husband-to-be's name ... Victor ... and I'm not even lying.

Seriously. Ashley and Victor. I know.

So, later that night I was telling the ex-boyfriend the story ... not that he would would even get it (he doesn't watch Y&R), but because I was buzzed and the only things I could retrieve from my memory happened within the previous two hours ..


Me: "So, her cousins name is Chin and she changed it to Ashley .... AND .... her fiancee's name's Victor! What is that?"


Ex B-Friend: "Dude, if I were Asian and my name were Chin I would totally change it to Chink."

Sometimes, I just love that fucker ...

First Class All The Way!

Because my ex-boyfriend is feral, he lacks certain manners. Table manners, primarily.

I suppose this is because he had a single Mom who was raising a litter of kids and therefore was extremely busy and worn thin. As a result she never had the time teach him how to use things like forks, knives and napkins. It could also be because he left home at 16, and he was forced off to "boarding" school, where he scraped with the other little wolves, sporting a wild crudeness which evolved into totally disgusting table behavior. Whatever the cause, he eats like a fucking animal.

Even at the finest restaurants, there is no use of a napkin. More often than not, there is no use of table utensils. He eats sushi with his fingers. He eats ribs like a caveman, diving in, wolfing the platter down in a manner which leaves sauce mittens on his hands all the way up to the wrist. I am appalled and say, "Do you want to borrow my napkin?" though I don't want to give it to him for fear of him returning it when finished. And with a barbeque sauce smile smeared across his cheeks and chin like Crusty the Clown, he says, "Nah, I'll clean up when I'm done."

Luckily, like a starving mutt, he finishes his food in under two minutes. He then excuses himself with his sauce mittens and clown face, and heads to the bathroom to clean up while the people sitting around us look in my direction with empathy .... for I am out on a date with a retarded boy.