Trapped in the car

This afternoon I had a real winner, just as the car malfunctioned. The inner covering for the driver door has been broken and falling off for months. Fred has known about it for at least four months and it's still not fixed. Today it caused me to get trapped inside the Falcon.

I was picking up an older lady at a grocery store, and when I tried to get out, the covering slid down and caught on the bottom door sill. I couldn't open the driver door. With the center console and laptop on my right, I couldn't get over to the passenger side to get out that way, either. I was completely stuck.

That, by itself, did not herald the end of the world. It was the old lady I was picking up who made things unbearable.

She was standing beside a shopping cart that had one little bag in it. And she wouldn't move. She just stood there watching me struggle with the door.

I finally got it to open and went to get her groceries and hold the door for her.

Every time I get into one of these situations I think about all the cabs I've taken, and all the cabbies who won't get out of their cars, won't speak to customers, and don't even shower. I think about how some of them smoke in their cars, have all the windows up, and have the window switch turned off.

Why don't I operate like them? No idea. It's not in my genes, I guess.

"I really don't know what you were waiting for," she said. She knew exactly what I was "waiting" for. What a bitch. It took everything I had, all my strength of will, to keep from yelling at her. I kid you not, the "C" word was ready to go.

The bag had a single can of cat food in it -- nothing she couldn't carry.

We went a whopping seven blocks to her house. This time the door was worse. I finally karate kicked it and broke the door liner off completely. I put the broken pieces in the trunk.

Then I opened her door -- she wouldn't do that for herself.

The fare was $4.20 and she gave me four singles and four dimes. That's a $.20 tip. I threw the dimes on the sidewalk.

Her: "You don't want the money?"

Me: "I don't want dimes."

Her: "Why not?"

Me: "Because they have no value."

I left her standing in the driveway with the tell-tale bewildered look in her eyes. I wonder if she'll take to heart what she learned -- The Great Depression has been over for a long, long time, and that some inflation has occurred since then.