Cab #2699

Date Taken: 06/05/07
From: North Loop
To: Albany Park

The Cab: Was filled with miniature hookers who stumbled from the backseat and blocked the door while their pimp paid the fare. After pushing past them I discovered they were actually three fashionably dressed eleven-year-old girls and an exhausted father. I was astonished when I saw the cab's leather seats. I wondered for a moment if it was fine, Corinthian leather. An enormous amount of black rubber sheeting covered the floor and the excess bulged from below the drivers' seat. A "U" shaped slice had been cut into the back seat divider. White synthetic filaments fanned out of it and made a tiny Santa beard. A picture of the illegal Chicago Olympic torch logo was pasted onto the Plexiglas divider. The cab smelled like - nothing. Sweet, unexpected nothing.

The Driver: Fairly good-looking, with a ten o'clock shadow and a furrowed brow. He asked me where I would like to go and how I would like to get there. When I told him he frowned. "Dee Kennedy eez too crowded." He shook his head. "I will take Elston." I told him I preferred the Kennedy, but he insisted. As we drove over the expressway he extended his right arm in a sweeping gesture and inhaled deeply. His barrel chest almost doubled in size. I expected to hear, "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him," but instead I got "Dat is de Kennedy." I looked. It was full of cars. Just like always. No better or worse than usual. I groaned and prepared for an expensive meandering trip. He assumed I had groaned about the traffic and cried, "Yes, Yes!" I frowned, curled into a loose fetal position, and felt like a baseball in a glove.

The driver was wearing something on his right ear the size and shape of a silver cicada. Its single red eye blinked rhythmically during the ride while he had a long conversation in a language consisting mainly of the sounds "Shhh", "Ow", and "Ah La La."

The Driving: Extremely slow due to the traffic and fruitless shortcut. I finally convinced him to get back on the Kennedy. The traffic broke somewhere around the Ozinga Redimix towers. The ride cost four dollars more than usual.

Overall rating: 1 extended arm

- Bethany Lankin

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