Taxi Vignettes

Last night at 8:04pm I was just about to do a bad, bad thing - eat. Parked well into the drive-thru lane at an In-N-Out Burger, getting the $2.15 ready, the cab began to shake. Something was very wrong. Stuck in a drive-thru up near SFO...the trouble I would be in!!! I would miss the flight that was due in soon. Even worse, I would have totally messed up the burger orders. Boy, was I glad when I realized it was ONLY an earthquake.*

*The Calaveras Fault produced this magnitude-5.6 quake. It did no serious damage if you don't count the damage done to our shaky sense of safety.

Body Worlds 2 & The Three Pound Gem exhibit is in San José at The Museum of Innovation. I was asked by the Body Worlds people to do a pick up at SFO. The three men would be coming to California from Germany, and only one of the three gentlemen spoke a a bit of English.

At 7:30pm there I was at SFO, standing at the bottom of the escalator holding a sign with the three names, waiting for my customers. My imagination was conjuring up a vision of Albert Einsteins, so when two young guys resembling rock stars pointed at the sign, I thought they must be pointing to someone behind me. They indicated who they were by pointing to their names. The third guy? Somehow they managed to convey that their co-traveler was coming in later.

I directed them to carousel number two and excused myself. The lady in the baggage claim office entered the third guy's name into her computer and told me "Yes" he would be in at 10:30pm.

What, oh what, was I going to do with two young guys that had no idea how far away (40-miles) San Jose was. Standing in baggage claim with their bags on a cart, while I was making eating motions I asked if they were hungry.

Big smiles. One said, "Hamburgers?" I said, "Yes, hamburgers." The other one said, "McDonald's?" I said, "IN-N-OUT." I made like I was turning a steering wheel and said, "Let's drive." They echoed, "Let's drive!"

It took only about 20 minutes for them to order and scarf down two burgers each. Back in the taxi I suggested we go to a store. I heard, "A salon?" Oh dear. I drove them over to the nearest Longs. As soon as I pulled up, they bound out of the cab. I'm not sure what kind of 'salon' they were referring to, but Longs was a hit.

One of the fellows took off to the food isle, as the other guy started acting like a monkey. It hit me - he wanted deodorant.

With only thirty minutes left, I was waiting in a parking lot with two Germans, a bag of Otis Spunkmeyer's premium muffins, Evian bottled water, and deodorant. I had
reconciled myself for a long thirty minutes when I heard the cellophane rattle of the muffin wrapper. Ah for crumbs sake! I started the cab - I wanted to get the guy that got hung up, and get back to San Jose!

I got the three German lads to the hotel in San Jose at almost midnight. I found out the next day they would be setting up the bodies of Body Worlds.