Anyway, everyone knows that Uber drivers are thousands of times better than regular cab drivers. Even the Uber taxis that also drive as regular cabbies the rest of the time. Something about being on the Uber clock just makes them more friendly. Maybe it's because they know that their customers can rate them, and if you have bad customer service reports probably doesn't fare too well.
So yesterday, I get in the cab and this guy starts telling me that he drives in the city only 2 days a week. The rest of the time he lives out in Roseville.
But then he turns to me and asks me something that no one has ever asked in a cab before:
"Can I tell you a story?"
Sure. Why not? We have until Pine and Kearny, so we might as well enjoy our little ride together. Plus his accent was nice to listen to - he seemed a complex mix between an islander and a middle eastern man. He had the sing-song cadence of someone you might expect was Jamaican and laughed after every sentence he finished. But then he would throw in certain words, and they would remind me of being in Jr High at my best friend's house. She was Persian and her father used to say"my friend" every few moments the same exact way this cab driver did. And then he would also trill some of his consonants, making his entire accent impossible to place.
He began by turning to me at a light and declaring: "I have won the lottery."
"Really?" I think, Then, why are you driving a cab?"
"ONE-BILLION-TIMES. I have won!" He laughs.
I laugh.
"Ten years ago - when I move to San Francisco, I was in a bar. A girl walk in the bar, and I know that I want to talk with her. But I cannot talk with her. I am nervous." He laughs.
"But I make a mistake. I get very drunk. And when I wake up I am in my bed - I touch my body, and [he gasps] I say 'I am nak-ed!'" He laughs really hard.
"But then I feel skin next to me. There is someone in my bed....and she is nak-ed!" He laughs.
"AND IT IS THE GIRL FROM THE BAR!!!" He really really laughs.
"In my face, I say nothing. But in my mind I say 'MAN YOU DID IT!!!! IT THE GIRL FROM THE BAR!! YESSSSSSS! You are winning the lottery!" He really really laughs.
He then goes on to tell me how they spent 3 days, romping in bed, eating pizza, sleeping, and then repeating. The girl from the bar called in sick to work for an entire week.
"It was so beauty-ful my friend! You know? We love on each other so fast. Like, the connection is...." He makes a noise with his mouth that resembles a get engine.
"And this girl...she is the most beautiful girl in the world! She is so nice. She is 5'1 and 97 pounds, and so small, and so nice...she is nicest girl in the world. And we spend days sleep-ing, and eat-ing, and sleep-ing again. IT SO BEAUTIFUL!" He laughs.
Then he tells me that the girl had to go back to her life. He didn't call her. Six weeks later, he was drunk in a bar, and decides it's time to give her a ring. She comes out, they drink, and they fall into another week-long romp, with "eat-ting pizza" and "sleep-ing" on repeat.
This happens a third time. Weeks go by. Someone calls. They spend a week in bed.
The entire time he is telling me this, he is ranting about how beautiful this girl is, and how beautiful their connection is. And how being with her is the greatest thing in the entire world.
"THEN," he says, "One day, she call me. And she say to me 'I am preg-a-nant.' Because we never used the protection."
"AND I AM THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD MY FRIEND!!! She has made me a baby! It is so beauty-ful! My heart say 'Yesssss!!! You did it!!!' It is so beauty-ful!" And then he REALLY laughs.
He goes on to say that they moved in together, and paid of their debts and a few years later bought a 1930s house out in Roseville close to her parents. By this point in time they've been married 10 years, have a ten year old girl and a second child, a son, who is now eight.
He turns to me and says, "Every day, when I leave my family, or my beauty-ful wife for even two hours, it is like a prison. I cannot wait to go home to my house and be with her, because she is so kind! I have won the lottery - when you have the one-night-stand, you go home next day. But for me, I get a beauty-ful wife, and two babies, and a house! What a beauty-ful life!!" Then he laughs.
Suddenly, he crinkles his eyebrows and asks me, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Actually, I'm married...." I start.
"OH YES!!!!" He yells, and then literally claps his hands with excitement. "You need make baby! Do you have baby?"
"No, no babies...."
"Oh, my friend, listen to me my friend. Babies are the most beauty-ful thin'...you need make baby. Nothin' makes the connection better between man and woman than when you make baby. It is so beauty-ful. Yes, yes, you need make baby my friend!" He laughs.
"Forget the money. Forget everythin'. Just make baby. You can have a house in the middle of no where, and it's not expensive, but you know what? You don't care my friend...because you have husband and you have baby and your whole life is beauty-ful!"
We pull at Pine and Kearny.
He laughs.
"Well, thanks, have a great afternoon..." I call out as I'm leaving the cab.
He rolls down the window, leans out and yells, "Jenny-fer! Make baby my friend! Who cares about they money! Just beauty-ful husband, and beauty-ful baby!! You will have such a beauty-ful life!!"
And then he really laughed.
It was the funniest cab ride I have ever had.
-J
Maybe he was an angel trying to tell you something ;) That's awesome. Way awesome.
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