New York in the fall: love it!
Midtown……cocktails with friends….time to head back downtown. My sense of direction continually challenged, I bounced out of the hotel turning the wrong way heading up town. After four blocks I flipped around and was heading downtown. Then sprinkles came. No, not the kind on top of my favorite cupcake, the wet ones!
Then it went from sprinkles to a full on downpour! With no umbrella, all stores were closed, and no over hang in site, I was completely drenched. Picture yourself under a water fall, sans the bathing suit – that kind of drenched. Taxi cab after taxi cab flew by me, all full. Visualizing an empty cab was totally a waste of time. It was not happening.
Suddenly, I spotted an overhang, albeit very small. As I ran under it, I glanced down at my suede boots: they were soaked!
My romantic fantasy of being caught in the rain running into David’s arms flipped into a nightmare with me drenched and running into a livery cab. For many years David had cautioned me about ,livery cabs (aka black cars). Actually, cautioned me is way to delicate of a word. Basically, I was afraid I would be kidnapped and raped any minute if I were to take one.
Stubborn and soaked, I flagged down a livery car! The car was spotless and the driver treated me like his sister. He passed me a handful of paper towels, which was a sweet gesture, however, what I needed was to walk through the blow dryer at the end of a car wash.
I wanted to feel safe, but the tape recorder in my head kept playing David’s voice telling me that I’m about to get murdered. So, I called David to stay on the phone with me as we headed downtown. The whole time praying that the driver was not going to attack me.
I arrived at our hotel, safe and sound. The driver was sweet as could be.
For a moment, I felt badly about thinking so ill of him, just because he’s drives a livery cab instead of a taxi cab, and then I was kinda annoyed as I realized that he didn’t even hit on me.
