I'm Going to Go All "TAXI" on Someone's Ass

by rachaelgking on March 25, 2008

So, I can’t be the only person to regularly get in arguments with DC cab drivers. I don’t think I’m unreasonable (but then, who does); it just seems like a ridiculously large portion of them are either assholes, idiots (at least when it comes to knowing their way around the city), or will stop at nothing to rip you off, zone-wise. To be fair, when my cab driver is NOT suffering from one of the aforementioned afflictions, he/she is generally one of the most well-educated (listening to news radio for hours on end) and interesting characters I ever come across in a day. I’ve been in the city for almost a year now, so I don’t know why cabbies are still pegging me as a vulnerable target and looping up into Foggy Bottom on Massachusetts in order to then take me south to my apartment in Dupont. And don’t even get me started on the zone system overall. If you live here, I don’t need to, because you know, and if you don’t, you won’t get it. Because it MAKES NO SENSE. Other than to put ridiculous amounts of money in the cabbies’ pockets for taking an unsuspecting tourist oh, 3 blocks.

Saturday night I got into a cab in Georgetown. It is $9.80 to my apartment from there. I know this because I am a shoe whore and Steve Madden + Georgetown + no Gtown Metro = I cab there a lot. I spent all my cash on covers and whatnot, so I asked him to stop at the Bank of America in Dupont Circle (because I have a *thing* about paying unnecessary ATM fees to take my money out of the bank, and because it’s 2 blocks from my apartment, so why not?) Now, if he had said that I would be surcharged because I was making him stop somewhere, I honestly would have accepted that. But he was rude, and thought I was a spoiled little rich brat from Georgetown (can’t really blame him for that assumption- I probably make it about other chicks on a regular basis), and so he told me in a menacing manner (well ok, it was just a really effing rude manner, but menacing gives it that whole damsel-in-distress image) that he would be charging me for an extra zone. When I argued with him, because my apartment is not only in the same zone as the ATM but a mere 2 blocks away, he told me to get the hell out of his cab. I refused, and told him I would only get out if he found me a new, much kinder cabbie. He was positively purple (woohoo alliteration!) with rage, but he had no choice unless he wanted to call the cops on me (and if he had so much as threatened, I would have run away like I was chasing an overweight basset hound.)

But he caved, circled back to M St and flagged me down a much more congenial ride home. I gave the second guy $20 and a heartfelt thank you for his good-natured demeanor. I win. (Or the second cabbie does. Either way, fuck the system.)

But none of that matters, because I am going to drag queen bingo tonight! Now this is why I was so glad to get out of the damn bible belt and to a real city Thomas, get your ass back to the East coast!