Cleveland cab conversation
I visited my friend and his wife in Cleveland recently. I had a great time, but this isn’t about that. It reminded me of something that happened last November when I was in Cleveland for their wedding. After the wedding, some of my friends and I took a minivan taxi back to our hotel. The driver provided some very entertaining conversation.
I’ve come to determine that I have a pretty good recollection for conversations because whenever someone is telling a story that I was involved in, I usually think to myself “that’s not quite what the person said”. But I have to try to keep my mouth shut so I’m not the annoying guy that interrupts the story for no good reason. However, this was a while ago so I’ll do the best I can. I’ll have to censor it a little.
The driver was a large, middle-aged black man. Since this was soon after Thanksgiving, somehow we get on that topic with him.
Driver: I had Thanksgiving dinner with my ex-girlfriend.
Me: Wow, that sounds weird.
Driver: Well, she wasn’t my ex-girlfriend when we started dinner.
He then tells about how she told him on the way home that she wanted to see other men. But he doesn’t sound too brokenhearted about all this.
Driver: I’m never going to share my emotions with a woman again.
Me: Never?
Driver: NEVER
Me: (trying to think of something to say) What if you want to have kids some day?
Driver: I already got four!
Now… I don’t want to make any assumptions here. Maybe he’s divorced. But he didn’t mention being divorced. He tells us he’s forty-something. I had thought he was younger but I couldn’t see his face well. He then starts a rant about how he’s done with women and he’s only interested in having sex with them now.
Driver: When we’re done, she can clean herself up, do whatever she needs to do to get herself straight, then GET THE @#*% OUT!
That second-to-last word had extra emphasis on it. I was trying not to laugh out loud at this point, mostly because I don’t want to be White Man In Suit laughing at Stereotype Black Man. Part of me even wondered if he was just making stuff up, playing up the black stereotypes for us as a way of poking fun at us. But sadly, I don’t think he was.
He starts talking about how he doesn’t have time for dumb women. She doesn’t have to be really smart but she has to have a head on her shoulders. Sounds reasonable to me, but he takes this one where I wasn’t expecting.
Driver: A woman’s got to be able to tell me what 7% is as a decimal.
That was such an odd thing to say that I figured I must have heard him wrong. So I say “what?”
Driver: If a woman can’t tell me what 7% is as a decimal, I don’t want nothing to do with her. I was dating a girl once and I asked her what 10% of 500,000 was. She couldn’t tell me. I never called her again.
I had to laugh at that one. But he wasn’t done.
Driver: If a woman can’t tell me what the definition of “pontificate” is, I don’t got time for her.
I think our cab ride was over at that point so end of story. He definitely made what could have been a boring ride much more enjoyable for me. I think the story lost some of the humor in the telling, but there it is. Others that were in the cab too: how’d I do? Leave anything out?