Once in a very great while, I've been able to predict the future with success. Here - possibly - is one such success, concerning the Moslem cabbies in Minneapolis-St. Paul refusing to take passengers who were carrying alcohol. We discussed this on September 19th and near the bottom of this now long-dead thread, I proposed a solution - a system of colored lights for every cab, so that you could board the one that most closely corresponds to your ethnicity and religion, thereby keeping your delicate sensibilities undisturbed and, more importantly, bringing the liberal dream of societal atomization one step closer to reality. Each cab would have a distinctive pattern of colors and blinks, rather like lighthouses. Maybe Zagat or Frommer's or Lonely Planet could then publish a light book, like the kind that an old freighter would have kept on its bridge, only pocket-sized. I said:
So say you're at an airport. Halal Hacks could have a light that flashes 1 1/2 seconds green, while the Kosher Kab Kompany flashes 1 second of blue, an interval of one second, followed by 1 second of white. The Mennonites-Only Cab, which only comes every four hours, is distinguished by its alternating red and green lights.
It is just barely possible that the administrators of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport read Flares. Ah, but will they be green lights, you ask? And will they flash? We shall see. Predictions are an art, one fraught with uncertainty and peril.
5 comments:
Predictions are an art, one fraught with uncertainty and peril.
Especially about the future.
Refusing to ride in a cab based on the color of its light will be illegal, of course. These things only work one way.
Oh Look!! A cabby that we won't tip! Pass the pork rinds and the little bottle of gin I bought on the plane. This is gonna be fun.
I'm not much of a drinker anymore, but reliving old times with a couple of friends I got in a Muslim cab recently late at night in the bar district of Victoria BC, where pretty much the only people about were drinkers. We got scowled at the whole way home.
Prediction: I won't be surprised if the next step in Minnesota will be to refuse passengers who've been drinking. There needs to be a light for cabbies who just don't get what the service job is about. And I'm not surprised they don't get it - regular 3 hour waits to get a fare? How do they make a living? WHat does a cab ride cost? I'd be a resentful loser too if I depended on this airport management to feed my kin.
The whole thing is really preposterous. For a while after my AD discharge (68) I drove a cab in the D.C. metropolitan area. You had to literally fear for your life before turning down a fare.
BTW, it was one of the best jobs I have ever had. Just no money.
But the conversations... The things those late night pentagon workers had to say. I will let go a secret. I was doing a lot of reading in those days, so...just throw a copy of... hell I don't know, anything literate, up on the dashboard and it was as if you were a confessional. Wish I could remember it all.
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