“To the fireworks” is not a destination, yet I got asked three separate times last night to go there, mostly from people who would have gotten there faster if they had walked the six blocks instead of having me drive them through gridlocked traffic. Working the Fourth of July consists of a quiet evening that goes absolutely bananas for about an hour before and an hour after the fireworks. People crowd to the Marina Green, including out-of-towners or just plain dumb locals who somehow think there’s going to be parking for their Escalade within a mile of the Bay. From the Embarcadero to the Wharf there are a hundred great vantage points to see the fireworks, but there ain’t nowhere to park your car once it gets close to showtime.
No one was too bad last night in my taxi, but no one was particularly good either – at least the girl who puked out of my cab did it in standstill traffic and didn’t get one piece of regurgitated pepperoni pizza on the upholstery.
I picked up a woman halfway through the show at a drugstore who went on and on about how she had to get home to her little boy because she had been a bad mommy, only to realize two minutes into the conversation this crazy bitch was talking about her cat.
“He got so terrified last year when the fireworks went off that he peed all over the floor because of stress, which led to an infection that put him in a four thousand dollar surgery. They had to cut off his penis and widen his urethra, which solved the problem, but now he’s got little lady parts because people like watching things explode.”
Uh, I asked you if you were going to watch the fireworks and seeing as how I’ve never met you, maybe the explanation of why it was medically necessary to cut off your cat’s penis could have waited until I’d known you at least ten minutes. Then again, people who refer to their animals as their children, like – for real – probably don’t have a lot of social skills.
I took a young couple from Modesto around to every Starbucks in the Wharf trying to locate their car before they got mad that I couldn’t help them.
“Sorry, but I ain’t Saint Anthony.”
“Who?”
“Nevermind.”
Most of the people who had a few brain cells to rub together either spent the day drinking and grilling outside or split town completely on a four-day weekend. The rest seemed to be tourists of life, draped mostly in too-bad-to-be-ironic flag shirts and mapping out their evening around twenty minutes worth of explosions in the sky. I mean really, who the fuck comes all the way from Fremont to The City to spend the evening waiting for some fireworks?
Mostly people who I wouldn’t want to hang out with under any circumstances, except that I was working and they were the only kind of folks I got in my cab for a couple of hours.
If you wouldn’t want to drink with them, at least take their money.
I got two separate conspiracy theorists for long rides, where they both felt the need to let me in on the truth about America, which was hilarious because they came less than an hour apart and had totally different theories.
I got an old fat black gay man from Noe Valley who was trying to hit on me but was so drunk he gave up, though he tipped me three hundred percent as he stumbled out onto Mission Street.
Most of my passengers were a mess. Most of them were mouthbreathing idiots. Most of them meant well but ended up being obnoxious.
Just like most of the country we live in.
Happy 237th, America… you showed a lot of promise in your youth, but your long game sucks. Thanks for playing.
