My travel in the US usually involved the airport long-term parking lot. Here, that’s not an option. Most of my colleagues use a limo pickup service. But during daylight hours especially I prefer to catch a taxi cruising the neighborhood. My theory is that it is much greener to catch a stray taxi that just happens to be passing than to make someone make a special trip to pick me up. Admittedly, the fact that it means that I can avoid any prior planning and commitment as to the exact moment that I have to be ready to leave my apartment could also be a factor.
On a recent trip, I as I left my apartment building and walked towards the street to find random transportation to the airport, I noticed a group of people who also appeared to be leaving on a trip judging from the hugging and mooning going on. I quickened my pace in hopes of snagging the first taxi, Sure enough, there was a taxi out there but when I signaled, there was no movement. I assumed that the departing group had called that taxi so I walked on towards the corner. I saw another taxi coming down the street but it was already occupied. I walked further, and yet another taxi came down the street and when I flagged it and it stopped. Just at that moment a police car turned the corner, stopped by my taxi and motioned for it to move on since taxis are not allowed to stand on the street and wait on passengers. I ducked into the taxi as the police car drove away thinking I was finally on my way.
Well, it was not going to be that easy. As my taxi started to pull away, another taxi came out of nowhere and blocked the road. The other driver then got out of his taxi shouting and gesturing at my driver. The drivers engaged in a “gentlemanly discussion” in the language of their choice through the front seat passenger window. With traffic blocked by this spectacle, it took about a nano-second(1) for someone in a car behind us to come up and tell the blocking taxi driver that he needed to get out of the way as he was holding up traffic. After some extended “high level reasoning” the blocking taxi driver started towards his car, backed up and executed a reverse 3-point turn.
As we started to drive off, the blocking driver again started yelling and gesturing and pulled sideways again to impede our progress. At this point I got out of the cab and “quietly and politely” told him to get out of the way and move on (my good man) or I was calling the police. It wasn’t until I read him his Taxi ID number and started dialing my phone that he gave up and moved out of the way. Needless to say, my driver had many insightful observations on the way to the airport about “CRAZY PAKISTANIS” who “HAVE NO BRAINS.”
(1)Though there is a finite value that describes a nano-second, practically speaking, it can also be described as the amount of time that elapses in developing countries between a traffic light turning green and the cars behind the front car starting to blow their horns.
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