To the douche, er, dude who jumped on the hood of my cab hoping to get a ride after the bars had closed on 6th Street:
My good sir, I hope you will accept my apologies for snapping at you like that a few weeks ago. After you did an impressive, albeit drunken and slightly slow-motion Jason Bourne shoulder roll off the hood of my washed, leased and dent-free white Crown Victoria, I should have kept my cool. Clearly. A couple deep breaths and a few moments to contemplate YOUR needs is obviously what the situation called for.
Instead, opting not to focus on what could have driven you to make such an asinine decision, I flew into the kind of public rage a civilized man like myself is not familiar with. Throwing my cab in park in the middle of 7th Street to get out of the car and confront you was most definitely a bad idea. Especially with two customers sitting in the back of my cab. My bad, guys.
And then to explode out of my cab like that, like a frothing Tasmanian devil — not cool. You looked pretty scared, like you thought I might be some unhinged maniac who was gonna clock you with my handy drumsticks. Maybe for a split second there . . . I was. Maybe for a brief snippet of time, all the drunk a-holes and d-bags who've flipped me off and screamed at me for not stopping for them as I'm on my way to pick up one of my regulars who has called me for a ride, maybe all that rage and stupidity that's been blasted at me when the bars close finally came out in our encounter. Your drunken stupidity made me realize I need to chill the fuck out.
So I thank you for that.
I'm not so proud of that torrent of inarticulate fury I leveled at you once I was out of my cab, either.
"What the FUCK, dude?! Are you KIDDING me?! What the fuck?! THIS is how you . . . you . . . you go about getting me to fucking STOP for you?! You fucking idiot! Do I go to your job and fuck up your shit?! Huh?! Would you like that?! What the FUCK, man?!"
My brain was in flames and the synapses weren't firing quite right. What I meant to say was:
"Listen, asshole. Jumping on my hood is probably the WORST way to get me to pick you up. In fact, it makes me never want to pick you up. Ever. Do I go to your house and destroy your property? Not cool, dick. Not to mention the fact that should you damage the cab — which I do not own, btw — I WILL track you down and get you to pay. Which would be a big pain in the ass for me AND you. So stop jumping on hoods, guy. Besides, I wasn't gonna be stopping for you anyway because I was on my way to pick up someone who called me ahead of time for a ride. Maybe if you stop jumping on hoods, some cab driver out there would be willing to take your call and come scoop you up in the middle of all this bullshit."
This is what I should've said. I apologize for not being more articulate in the moment.
And that move I made to crack you in the nuts with my drumsticks? That was bush. My apologies. That must've felt pretty emasculating when you cowered like a little girl. And I must thank you for being such a happy dumb-ass drunk. That's the closest I've ever felt to being a big league manager jawing nose-to-nose with an umpire. But you took it — all my spit and rage — like a goofy golden lab that just got caught shitting on the rug.
I apologize for rubbing your nose in the shit. And I thank you for not being an angry drunk with a short fuse. Things could have gotten ugly. Drumsticks could have been broken.
Again, I apologize for my unacceptable behavior. Just stay the hell off my hood.
Chilling the fuck out,
Bob the Cabbie
