Greetings From Bernal Heights, San Francisco

If brevity is bliss, then everyone will soon be residing in taxi heaven because I am going to keep this posting short.  I am writing from my friend Jake's apartment in a neighborhood southeast of the outer Mission District.  Today "she-who-can't-be-named" and I explored the vegetative wonder that is University of California's Botanical Gardens located in the Berkeley Hills.  It has become a favorite haunt, especially on days like this one, warm with a clear blue sky overhead, the Golden Gate Bridge brightly gleaming to the west.   Tomorrow we go to that wonderful museum, the deYoung while on our way north to soak in Orr Hot Springs.  In other words I have something other than taxi on my focus, and "she-who-can't-be-named" wants to keep it that way, objecting yesterday at lunch any time I broached the subject with Jake.  Still, where can anyone in polite company be called a "serial killer" and not be offended?  Why in the interior of a cab, that's where!

One of my last fares of the weekend was a very drunk, young Ethiopian man coming from the Tukwila Golden Nugget Casino.  As near as I could tell, he might of once been, or still is, a taxi driver.  Regardless he was nearly incoherent, having difficulty telling me what he wanted or where he was going.  Disliking me asking questions, he progressively grew more agitated.  When we finally stopped to buy the beer he didn't need, he said to me, "You give me the creeps.  You look like a serial killer."

Upon his return with a case of beer, he continued with this line of nonsense but my response made him laugh, telling him "I am too busy to kill him now, so I will have to murder you later."  Enjoying that thought so much he tipped me a dollar, providing  me 21 dollars total for the silly 15 minutes dealing with a sotted imbecile.  I suppose this kind of interaction could happen in a bar but perhaps is far more commonplace in the taxi.

So as I will always say, if you want to be called "anything and everything" beneath our shining sun, drive a cab.  You too can be a serial killer.  Ain't that nice?  And of course it isn't but again, always again, welcome to taxi!