Death Cab for Donna
Now, let me just set this up for you so you know just where I am deficient: I'm WASP. Well. Maybe not the P part so much. But let's just say that I've never really spent much time on, nor understood public transportation. In my world, everyone has cars and if they don't have a car, they lease one. When I'm on vacation or going to trainings or conventions in other states, I'll take a cab to and from the airport, but I tend to plan my travel around the hotel I'm staying in so I can walk everywhere. This is partially because I love to walk, but also because I hate driving in unfamiliar places and do not understand public transportation.
I can make some genuine exceptions to this rule--particularly when it comes to Vegas, which can be too sprawling to navigate after a few cocktails or for that one business trip where I was staying at the Rio. I have plenty of Las Vegas cab adventure stories, mostly gin-tinged and somewhat lively.
Now, I like to take early or very late flights, because I've found that I can sleep on the plane and doing so makes the time pass faster and also, I catch up on sleeping. Leaving Seattle, I'd chosen a 6 am flight, so Liz and I woke at 4 am, threw things together and stumbled downstairs to check out and to catch a cab.
The Westin is a nice hotel. It's no Four Seasons, but it's pretty okay. They have the cute bag boys who do things for you like move your bags and hail cabs for you. One of these boys was talking to a man in a black car when we walked out and once we'd presented ourselves as sleeping girls who wanted to go home, he took our bags and nodded to the man in the black car.
We'd ridden from SEATAC in a Prius, the first time I'd been in one. It was white and gaudily decorated with green stickers indicating both its taxiness and it's earth-friendliness. This black car was somewhat fancy and unmarked. I worried what it would cost, but I'd taken out plenty of cash to deal with necessary tips and the expensive trip to the airport. Unless he was going to charge in the hundreds, we'd be okay.
I flopped into the backseat and Liz got in on the other side and I slipped the bag boy a tip before he shut the door. He let the man know we were headed to the airport and he got in and started to drive.
There are probably endless ways to get to and from SEATAC. I strongly suspect that most taxis take the longest ones in order to up their rates. We were going a route I hadn't gone before and I started to look around to see what the rates of this cab were so that I'd have an idea of what the total would be and how much I was going to take from his tip if he was taking the 'long way.'
This was when I noticed that the rates were not posted.
And there was no meter at the front of the car.
And his license and his picture were not in evidence on the back of the seat.
I tried hard not to panic, but I did ask myself why I would get into an unmarked car in the Serial Killer Capitol of the US. It's not like I didn't know this before I came here. I thought the fact that rain made people homicidal was a cute quirk of the city.
I wondered how I was going to die. I debated whether I should make conversation to seem sympathetic or if I should keep quiet and act like nothing was wrong and maybe I wouldn't resemble his sister/mom/ex-girlfriend that jilted him enough that he'd decide that I didn't need to die.
I thought about what being beheaded would be like.
He had to ask me a couple of times what airline I was flying out on.
And there I was, standing in front of the Southwest Airlines curbside check-in, asking him what I owed him for the ride. He gave me an odd look and said $35. It was $45 in the Prius. Then again, in the Prius, I didn't think I was going to have my toenails pulled out one-by-one.
I think I gave him three 20s and hoped he didn't stab me in the back when I turned to take my bags.