Almost every time I take a cab somewhere the driver is on his phone with someone blabbering about something in a language that I don't understand because I'm an ignorant American who can only speak English, broken French, and swear words in 9 other languages. I assume that cabbies aren't just getting on the phone when they see me hailing the cab, although it would be a fantastic ploy to avoid having to deal with talkative customers. For all I know he might be reciting an old Scooby Doo cartoon in Pashto, however this is unlikely because I think "zoinks" would still be "zoinks" regardless of the translation. Often I wonder just who the hell cabbies talk to all day and night long. More importantly, how do they have enough interesting stuff to say in order to talk on the phone for an entire work shift?
I like to fancy myself a pretty interesting guy with a fair number of friends. Yet in any given day if I were to call all of my friends to discuss the events of the day (or more likely to bitch about how I was slighted by society that day) I'm pretty sure that would only fill up 2 hours, maybe 3 tops. Even if I had some new hot gossip about a friend of a friend of a friend's girlfriend making out with a shirtless Kyle Orton I don't think I'd be able to fill more than a few hours of conversation with 5 or 6 friends who might care. Somehow cabbies are on their phones for an entire shift every single day.
It doesn't matter what time of day it is either. I got in a cab at 2 last night and the cabbie was gabbing away the entire trip. It's entirely possible that at this time he was calling what my dad always refers to as "the old country." This seems like a pretty likely possibility but even with calling cards bringing down the price wouldn't his phone bill be roughly 467 times his take home pay? If he's calling locally who is up at 2 to just shoot the shit? I stay up pretty damn late but I don't want to make small talk at 2. This has led me to come to the following conclusion: cab drivers are always talking to other cab drivers on the phone.
No one else would be up and no normal people would talk for that long about nothing. I assume that all cabbies just talk to their cabbie friends who are also driving around aimlessly and bored. I still have no idea what they are talking about nor why they would bother to do so, I guess it's better than having to talk to drunk customers such as myself. Still, that's a lot of talking on the phone and I am envious. I wish I had that much material to talk about and more importantly a captive audience to listen to my ramblings. There are very few things I enjoy more than the sound of my own voice. After all, isn't that the entire purpose of having a blog?
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