Taxi Is
Taxi is pulling up, holding onto the pants of a handicapped passenger dealing with no balance and cerebral palsy.
Taxi is screaming at the fool alcoholic who opened a can of beer in the cab, creating a puddle on the floor board, then throwing his debit card at him, "get out! get out!"
Taxi is following a passenger down a long hallway to her apartment, carrying her small desk.
Taxi is driving twenty miles to pick up a passenger knowing if I don't, she'll be waiting how long? for a cab.
Taxi is not charging the blind passenger his $3.50 fare form the Safeway around the corner and helping him to the door while carrying his bags.
Taxi is remaining cool, not losing my temper when the oddly aggressive passenger commented he was picking up upon my "sexual vibe."
Taxi is avoiding the SUV who just ran the red light, not for a moment hesitating. Thank goodness I did.
Taxi is losing my temper when the passenger had me take the wrong Everett exit, routing me unnecessarily into heavy traffic.
Taxi is having to go around the long way once again when picking up a waiting customer in West Seattle because those GOD DAMN idiots running Seattle's Department of Transportation (SDOT) won't let taxis use the lower West Seattle bridge 24/7.
Taxi is picking up at Muckleshoot Bingo and understanding full well that my passenger sitting there in the backseat is completely nuts, meaning anything I might say to her would and could be totally misconstrued.
Taxi is taking the child for an hour long, $99.00 ride from West Seattle back to nearly Black Diamond when there is an elementary school blocks from her home.
Taxi is taking a regular customer's many bags of recycling and garbage out to the containers in the alley.
Taxi is picking up a guy very early Sunday morning after getting his car towed for driving 105 MPH on I-90 with a suspended driver's license. He wasn't too concerned, having earlier won $1200.00 at a casino.
All these examples are recent, from the last two weeks, describing what it is to be driving taxi as it is minus excuse and embellishment. Ready to join our "Alice in Wonderland/Through the Windshield" reality?
USA COVID-19 Infections and Deaths
Per Tuesday, May 18th, 2021, 33,020,300 Americans are known to have contracted the virus. 586,700 Americans have died. To put this into some kind of usable perspective, more Americans have died than the entire population of the State of Wyoming, which currently is 569,013. I keep giving outs lots of masks, meaning too many passengers enter the cab not wearing a mask. Do people ever truly learn the lessons provided and taught by Nature and Mother Earth? No seems to be the obvious answer. Wear your masks. Get vaccinated. Stop being suicidal. And stupid.
Get Ready to Cruise
The House of Representatives passed Murkowski's "Alaska Tourism Restoration Act" today. Carnival, Holland America and Princess Cruise Lines have now announced sailings beginning July 25th. All I can hope for is that Pier 90/91 has a more professional crew directing traffic this year, not looking forward to the usual mindless chaos passing for rule and order.
West Seattle High Bridge Repair
Instead of replacement, the damaged West Seattle freeway bridge connecting the northernmost West Seattle neighborhoods to State Route 99 and I-5, is being repaired, with the expected reopening occurring about this time next year---May, June, July---or something like that. How long the repair will hold is anyone's guess.
Another guess is whether SDOT has learned its lesson and will now limit weight loads upon the bridge. One important factor causing cracks in the supporting beams was WDOT/SDOT routing of heavily passenger laden buses to only one side of the east-bound lanes, causing undue stress to that section of the bridge.
As I keep saying, Seattle is a poorly governed, managed city. The reason why is many but when collectively, you, number one, say nothing is wrong, and number two, compounding that by shutting down the brain and closing the eyes, this kind of thing will keep repeating. Mayor Durkan, for instance, keeps denying that she called the occupied Seattle Capital Hill park a new "Summer of Love," denial a useful tool when disinterested in reality and fact.
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, who is the Mayor, who is the Bum?
What is true? what is not? but nothing changing or altering Seattle's swift kick in the municipal butt to anyone giving a damn, or not having the brain the size of a can of spam.
Poem: "The Witness
I told everyone what I saw and no one believed me.
I repeated again and again "it's true, it's true" but to no effect, no response.
Worse, it becoming clear it was now "my agenda," what occurring not history at all,
only an overactive imagination fabricating a woeful tale authored solely by me,
me suddenly the perpetrator, no longer a witness to avoidable tragedy
but merely a convicted criminal led blindfolded to the gibbet.
Taxi is what it IS!!
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