If you’ve never flown in to the San Francisco International Airport, I’ll give you a quick highlight. On the aircraft’s landing approach to the runway, if you look out the airplane window in the moments before the wheels touch the ground, you will feel absolutely certain that you are about to crash into the Pacific Ocean. It’s quite invigorating. Did the flight attendant say that my SEAT became a flotation device? Or did she say that the flotation device was UNDER my seat? Never mind, we are at the gate already.
As I exited the airport that evening with my bags, I saw a lonely taxi sitting ominously curbside with tinted windows. I cautiously approached, and the driver door opened as if on a motion sensor. A shadowy figure emerged through a fog, walked to the back of the vehicle to open the trunk, and then disappeared back into the taxi. I tossed my bags into the trunk, half assuming it would immediately drive off without me. It did not drive off, unfortunately for me. I could even swear that in the moment, I heard my own voice yelling at me from a distance to warn me not to get into this particular taxi.
His name was Todd, or perhaps Ron. As I settled into the back seat of my next adventure, I took a look around and soaked in my surroundings. Rod looked a lot like the old man that sold Gizmo to the traveling salesman in the Gremlins movie, or at least the parts of him that I was able to see. Rolland never turned around, nor made any sort of eye contact. There were some random wispy white hairs dancing from the side of his cheek, with similar hairs grasping at a blue tooth device on his ear like some sort of overgrown, vined carnivorous plant. The ear hairs weren’t whimsical at all, they were all business, with a very important function. They stayed silent and motionless, awaiting important business phone calls. They took the phrase “hold my calls” literally. There was some sort of cable that ran up to his sunglasses, which he was wearing at night, just like the legendary Corey Hart.
Roger was wearing a heavy trench coat, with a wide scarf bundled around his neck. It was seventy degrees. The car smelled like a pine tree air freshener factory mixed with one or two dead bodies, and lots of dirty feet all soaked in pee. There was also a hint of wet dog, which also smells like that smell when you open your washing machine and discover abandoned clothes from three days ago that never made it into the dryer. Mr. Todd, or Hector, never looked back at me. From the rear view mirror, I saw the expressionless 2-for-$10 sunglasses that could win a World Poker Championship. Zippee the taxi driver communicated only in one-word sentences.
“Where?” he expounded.
“The 425 building on Market Street” I yammered.
“Oh” he droned on and on.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the response of “oh”. Was it disappointment? Should I change my destination to 525, just to make things interesting? Did you just go back and reread above to see what the other address was? Do you even care?
His phone rang. It was just one “ding” sound, like a text message, but it was his ringtone.
“Eh” he rambled on and on. Then came a very long pause. “Ah” he explained. He lifted his phone screen, which then went dark as he set it back down again. I guess that was it.
I looked around the taxi in amazement. The command center in the front seat had just about every type of plug, cable and charging device that I could ever imagine, and perhaps even some that haven’t been invented yet. Within the spaghetti of cables, there were wires spliced together to connect to other wires, and those plugged into more wires that seemed to coil themselves around invisible objects in midair. It was a jungle overgrowth of copper, vinyl and blinking LEDs. I looked down to see tangled cables and wires at my feet, like slithering serpents in search of the appropriate electronic in which to latch themselves onto. I cautiously slid my phone into my left front pants pocket just to keep it safe. I was riding in some sort of mobile science experiment. I would not have been surprised if I saw a flux capacitor snuggled within the center console, and I half expected Ringo to begin rambling about 1.21 gigawatts, or begin shouting warnings about my parents' future.
There were notes everywhere, some were drawings, others were math equations which seem to continue on from left to right on varying types of paper and font sizes. On the dashboard and pressed against the windshield was a variety of random gadgets, doohickeys and thingamabobs. There were at least a dozen cameras, which made me feel strangely at ease in spite of Ronaldi’s erratic driving. This HAS to be a hidden camera show. Perhaps a karaoke song will start playing any moment, and Ronald McDonald will take off his disguise. Then I caught a glimpse of something that made me uneasy. There were no less than three calculators stacked calculatingly in order by size, on top of what looked like a pair of silver handcuffs. No one should own a calculator in this day and age, let alone, three! What in the mathematical hell was this number-cruncher doing between fares?
Peeking from underneath the corner of the floor mat near my right foot was a collage of toenail clippings that I’m just going to assume was part of a private collection. It puts the lotion in the basket. Even stranger than that, in the little cubbyhole of the arm rest of the door was a half-eaten orange tic-tac candy. How does that even happen? I suppose it could have been a tooth, now that I think about it. The more I looked around, the more confident I felt that everything that has ever been asked of the audience members of the game show Let’s Make A Deal to produce from their purse or pockets existed in this vehicle.
A banana peel? Check.
A lost shirt button? Got it.
One eyeglass lens? Absolutely!
An unmarked white pill? Right here.
A sock that at one point used to be white, but is likely now being used to detail a car interior or check fluid levels under the hood? You want just one?
A dollop of green slime the size of a quarter? Who doesn’t have that?
The left hand of a department store mannequin? That’s an easy one…driver’s side back seat pocket next to the Smurf umbrella.
A wallet-sized autographed photo of Corey Feldman? Top-left corner of the windshield secured by white first aid tape.
Surely there wasn’t a whisk! Well, one would wonder. My brain couldn’t even comprehend the possibilities of what might exist in the hidden compartments throughout this taxi cab.
There were also some strange quotes hidden within the scribblings in plain sight. At first I chuckled to myself, but then realized these quotes were so cryptic that it made me uncomfortable. Here are a few examples that I vaguely remember:
“Always never lie”
“Sometimes you need a knife when you hit that fork in the road”
“I’ve always had the heart of a small boy. It’s in a glass jar”
“Be the best someone else you can be”
“At first you don’t succeed, change your goals”
"Always have an alibi"
“Cleanup Fees: Vomit=$100, Poop=$75, Urine=$125”
That last one ended up being a sticker on the window, and I found it strange that the going rate to clean up another person’s feces was $25 lower than vomit. Are these the corporate prices, or did Robert assign the prices himself? I would have guessed that at least one of those options would have been listed as “free”, the more time I spent in this circus tent. Curiouser and curiouser, we drove further into this rabbit hole.
Speaking of which, I easily get carsick. Unfortunately for me, Rapunzel was a professional Nauseateur. I couldn’t quite understand his driving technique when it came to the accelerator pedal. He was toe-tapping to the rhythm of the song Staying Alive, by the Bee-Gees. The nest of cables swayed forward and backward, and I felt as though I was caught in a storm at sea. As I looked out my passenger window, I observed no less than a dozen middle fingers drive past, aimed at Ricardo with the precision of a professional sniper.
I asked if he was having car issues, like with the carburetor, or gas pedal. Or perhaps we were running out of gas, since it was difficult to discern where a gas gauge would even exist in this alien craft. Or perhaps he needed medical attention?
“This is a different kind of way to drive”, I said with much sarcasm.
“I’m right”, said Russian Roulette. I wasn't even sure what that was supposed to mean. He took us up to 85 MPH, and I felt a surge of disappointment that I wasn’t instantaneously transported to another time. I did, however, close my eyes tightly for just a second and imagined myself going back in time to warn myself not to get into this particular taxi.
Rhododendron took the freeway off-ramp which led to the heart of the financial district of San Francisco, and blew through a reddish-yellow traffic light with much confidence. It was still early enough in the evening that the city was bustling with pedestrians scurrying about like ants that were poured out of high rises. Rutabaga pressed his foot down on the accelerator, and we got up to about 65 miles per hour down a crowded street. At this point, I assumed I was going to be on the news. I was very impressed with the awareness and agility of pedestrians that gracefully dodged around us as we sped through crosswalks.
Up ahead, I could see some flashing yellow lights, and a large collection of construction signs and cones. We quickly approached a police barricade at the next intersection, where a police officer was directing traffic, and diverting cars from a heavy construction zone. Rustolium drove directly through the police barricade, sending cones flipping up behind us in the wake of rubber and exhaust fumes. I turned around to see the officer waving his hands to try and get our attention.
"I have plenty of time to make it to my work function tonight", I reassured him. "No need to rush." There was no response.
Ryan made a wrong turn down a one-way street. I knew this because all of the writing on the street was backwards. Oh, and also there were a shit ton of one-way street signs pointing in the opposite direction of the way that we were going. Faint headlights began to approach, growing larger and brighter.
“What?!” Renaldo blurted, perplexed.
“I think we are going the wrong way” I said nonchalantly.
We were definitely going the opposite way of the right way, which was the other direction. Without hesitation, Rhinoceros The Great shifted the car in reverse, even though we were still moving forward. The car made a loud thump, and we jolted violently to a stop. Before you could say “We are all going to die”, we were driving backwards down 1st street in San Francisco at about 25 miles per hour. I assumed he was planning to back out to whence we first came, and then drive forward down the very next street. He abso####-inglutely did not do this thing that I was assuming. Instead, Ricky Bobby continued driving through the intersection and down the next one-way street. Backwards. The backwards gear is typically used for short distances, like backing out of a parking space or driveway, and not usually as a means of transportation. I have never logged on to Google Maps for directions and had it return navigation instructions with, “Start out driving backwards for 200 yards at a high rate of speed…”
“Oh” he explained.
“Um, I think I can walk from here” I suggested.
We were about 5 miles from the building I was trying to get to, hopefully while still alive. I could now see the approaching car, windshield to windshield, as the other driver and his female companion pointed and looked on with disbelief. There was honking. I made a $75 clean-up-fee in my pants. My total cleanup fee at this point was $200 and climbing.
“No problem” Roadkill said comfortingly. I wasn’t sure who he was having a conversation with. I felt a slight slowdown, but then he kept driving.
“I got it” he elaborated. I looked around the car for some type of roller coaster bar to hang on to, and noted all of the locations within the car in which air bags might deploy.
As he got to the next intersection, Ronaldo turned backwards around the corner, allowing the other car to pass before shifting back into a forward gear to drive down the adjacent street. How am I not getting any of this on video before I die? Oh yeah, I know why, because I have over 1,800 photos on my phone of complete randomness clogging up phone storage. Luckily, “911” will still work from my phone if needed.
Rhinoplasty then says, “uh-oh”, which was concerning to me, considering I had not heard him utter the sound “uh-oh” in any of the previous driving shenanigans. We then came to an abrupt stop behind an endless line of cars. Redonkulous tilts both sunglass lenses towards me in the rear view mirror and says, “Hold on”. He made a sharp right turn down a narrow alleyway, which I think was more of a bicycle trail, and accelerates again as though we were on the wrong end of a police chase. When we emerged again from between the tall buildings, I found that we were on the backside of the building that I was trying to get to.
“This is good! STOP!” I yelled, and went to open the door as if that would stop us from moving.
“You sure?” he said innocently.
I can’t recall ever being so happy to step out of a taxi in my entire life. I took a deep breath of the city air, which is normally dank and musty, but mostly urine-esk. ROTFLMFAO then handed me the payment console, and popped the trunk so that I could get my bags. I was so happy to be alive, I think I accidentally hit the maximum tip amount, and if so, then I am guilty of enabling and encouraging stunt taxi driving. Rob was so happy when he looked at the electronic payment screen, that he handed me his business card. I collected my bags from the trunk, which took a bit of effort since some of the contents of my work bag were strewn about the cavernous trunk like debris from an explosion.
Somehow this entire adventure, which is normally a 30-minute drive at this time of day, took only 15 minutes! Is that even possible? Was my watch wrong? Did the time on my phone freeze? Was there some sort of electromagnetic interference from all of the cables and instruments inside that taxi? Perhaps Doc had made it up to 85 MPH after all, and my next actions could have a negative impact on the space-time continuum. What if this vehicle was rigged to travel back in time if it reaches 25 MPH driving backwards? I was lost and baffled in thought, when a voice pulled me back into reality.
“There you are! Where’d you go?” said one of my work colleagues as I entered the lobby of the 425 building.
“I just got here” I said, confused.
“Oh, I thought I saw you like 15 minutes ago. Weird.”
Weird indeed. This entire experience was surreal, scary and familiar all at once. As I waited for the rest of our group to meet up in the lobby of the building, I walked over to a nearby trashcan to toss the taxi driver’s business card. Just as I was about to toss it into the abyss, I pulled my hand back, and filed the card away in my wallet. Who knows when I might need another little adventure? Thanks for getting me to my destination on time, Rigatoni… wherever (and whoever) you are.
I stepped outside and walked up to the ice cream truck that was parked on the street to get a Popsicle on a whim. A whimsicle! Man, it’s great to be alive.
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