Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the ultimate part-time job for any aspriring writer. Many a hack drove a hack. But take heed, artistic fools: it's addictive! A goddamn day-long movie and you're behind the wheel! Yeeeeehaaaw!
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WHAT HAS FOUR WHEELS AND FLIES?
While stopping in a hotel taxi line just long enough to scarf a sandwich, I read a news item about America’s germ paranoia. Seems that more and more people are turning Howard Hughes over the fact that zillions of little buggies set up shop on bus handles, door knobs, kitchen counters and the like.
What caught my eye was mention of a sample of microscopic fecal matter collected from the seat of a taxi cab. Since the researchers involved were concerned with public hygiene, one may assume that they took the scraping from the back seat where all manner of humanity plant their butts.
But which seat in a cab gets the most use? The driver’s, of course, for it’s being sat upon even when the meter is off. This realization led to another: I’m sitting in Shit Central! My cab for the day is nearing 450,000 miles. That’s nearly half a million miles worth of human shit particles that rode sweat through filthy denim onto a putrid vinyl culture before I ever sat on it. Why, you can even smell it in some cabs, particularly those owned by obese drivers.
I imagined this steamy bed of collective caca to have the look, feel and even taste of whipped potatoes and gravy from KFC. This turned my stomach with an unpleasant association dating back to my childhood. Uncle Jerry, a former bouncer at Finocchio’s whose guts were Jell-O due to decades of hard drinking, was entering a deathly period of incontinence. Food could pass from mouth to diaper essentially unchanged. Auntie Edna wrapped up one of his Depends in a garbage bag and slipped me a dollar to throw it in the basement trash. It smelled of the same KFC dinner I was so excited to be sharing with the family an hour earlier.
Now I consider myself to be a bit of a clean freak. For instance, I change clothes for every shift and always wash my hands after making a pit stop in the garage john. But most drivers, it seems, are in the same pair of pants they wore back when they were cruising around in Checker Marathons. And do you think they dip their mitts after a taking a healthy five-minute cabbie piss? Our garage has no soap dispenser if that’s any indication.
But germs come in all shapes and sizes. Consider my steering wheel, which must contain more culture than "Rich Bitch Night" at the De Young Museum. Although I’ve never personally hooked a booger while hanging a U-turn, I’ve probably collected a pint of effluvia on my hands this year alone. But I’m just as guilty—how many times have I manually re-adjusted my balls seconds before grabbing the hand mic for a check-in?
The hand mic! Surely this must be Hygiene Enemy Number Two for the amount of flying, wet cheese puff and Slim Jim flecks it receives daily.
And let’s not forget that accepting cash is like being handed used Kleenex during cold season. Jesus help me! I’m mired in shit and snot and the company just raised my daily gate to 95 bucks!
I drove on, ignoring the bubbling sensation I swear I felt building beneath my seat. That’s when I began to play leapfrog with a garbage truck on Larkin. Hanging from the rear of this vehicle was a big humanoid slob who will be a ditch digger in his next life if he’s lucky. Just think: he’s the guy who collects those soiled Depends from the basements of the Sunset District. He’s the guy who takes away society’s most unwanted, most undesirable materials. Putrid, rotting food, discarded babies, barf bags, you name it. It was during that moment that I shrugged off my disgust and emerged from the shithole with a sparkling, clean soul and a mantra I left at a coat check years ago:
Things could always be worse. I could have a corporate job.
© 1999 A Rat's Ass Production. All rats reserved.