The Hooker, The Horndog, and The Hamburger

Well, it’s certainly good to see you again, my friends. Thanks for calling. I’d say it’s time for a little fun. Jump in the cab, and let’s go for a ride. This one’s on me.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the summer heat was really beginning to get to me. Actually, it’s not the heat at all, but all the (half) wits that constantly ask, "Is it hot enough for you?”

"I like to have a little fun with these morons, usually saying something like: Actually, I consider these kind of brutal temperatures to be merely a “warm up” for the eternity I will spend in Hell, a fate to be earned for the brutal murder I have decided to commit. I have chosen as my victim the one-thousandth person who asks me that question this summer. Wait a minute! Let me check my scorecard. (I pull a piece of paper out of my pocket, and pretend to consult it.) Yeah, I thought so. I was up to nine hundred, ninety-nine yesterday, and you’re today’s first…

You have my permission to try this yourself. The looks you’ll see are always good for a laugh.

Hey, you might get a kick out of these three short stories. I call this triplet

“The Hooker, the Horndog, and the Hamburger"

The Hooker
You know, I really enjoy being a professional cab driver. Apart from the obvious attractions of the job (like the low pay and long hours), I get to meet all sorts of very interesting people. Why just the other day I met this very charming young lady. She was dressed in not much more than boots, hot pants and belly shirt. I was at the corner of Twenty-Fourth and Van Buren (which if you're not familiar with Phoenix is a notorious "hooker walk"), when she walked up to me and asked if I was in service.
Well, folks, your Cab Guy is always “in service,” so I said, "You bet!”

She hops in the back seat, and I ask her where she’s going. Now, I don’t recall exactly where it was she was going, but I do seem to remember that it was only about two or three miles. She asked how much the fare was going to be. I told her that it would be about five or six dollars. She then inquired if, rather than charging her for the trip, I would take a blowjob instead. Sadly, friends, I had to decline. I told her that I could not accommodate her in that particular fashion. She became indignant, asking,

"Why the Hell not? Listen, you’re telling me that the fare is only five or six dollars. You gotta know that a blowjob is worth twenty!"

"Maybe so,” I say.

“The problem is, I can’t make change for a blowjob!”

So she paid cash. No tip though. Well, that’s a hooker for you! “Loose puss, tight purse," I always say!

The Horndog
Like I said, I meet all kinds of folks. Later that same night I was working in Scottsdale, and this guy flags me down, and gets into my cab. Now, friends, it was obvious that he was drunk, but until he told me so, it was not obvious that he was from out of town. (Not that I discriminate against “out-of-towners.” I do my best to be scrupulously fair, and charge everyone the same. As much as I can!) Anyway, he proceeds to tell me that he is from Chicago, and that he’s just in town for the weekend, on business. Then he asks me to take him to “where the hookers hang out.” Business trip? Funny business, more like it!

Well, of course your Cab Guy is hip. I know all the hot spots, although most visitors to our fair city usually ask me to take them to a nice bar or restaurant, or the closest movie theater. But who am I to judge? As a matter of fact, being a professional driver for hire, I love these kinds of trips. Most guys can’t make up their minds right away, and just like a kid in toy store, they have to look at all the merchandise being offered, before they make up their minds as to what to buy. Many times, this can involve several passes up and down the boulevard before the “purchase order” is placed, if you know what I mean. Meanwhile, the meter is running. And in the cab business, time, most assuredly, is money! So, anyway, I flip the meter on, and off we go.

Now a lot of people like to make conversation during their cab ride, and I am very happy to accommodate them, because, after all, I am first and foremost, a “people person.” This guy was no different, talking about his job and such like, and asking me questions about Arizona and the Phoenix area. Pretty soon we arrived in the part of town where the hookers hang out, and this guy throws me a curve ball, saying that he wants to get out and walk around a bit, that he’d call when he was ready for a ride back to his hotel. Disappointed as I was at the loss of all that “drive time”, I said

“Very good, sir,”

and pulled into a handy parking lot to let him out. As I was about to tell him the fare, all of a sudden, out of the blue, he asks me,

“Hey, Buddy, how much is a blowjob!”

I found this inquiry, and it’s implications, to be somewhat offensive, so I asked him,

“Sir, is it customary in Chicago for cab drivers to blow their customers? I’m curious, because here in Phoenix we usually just pick ‘em up and drop ‘em off.”

He was somewhat taken aback by this, saying,

“Sorry, Buddy, I think you misunderstand me. I mean, how much do the hookers charge?”

“Sir,” I reply, somewhat tersely,

“I believe I understand you perfectly well. I realize that to you I must seem like some nameless, faceless schmo, just a cabbie, a working class grunt, hardly fit to move about in the rarified realms of what you must consider to be polite society. However, I insist upon drawing the line at this implied slur on my character, little of it that I have, and so I must ask you, do I really look like the kind of degenerate who frequents the company of hookers, to the extent that I would have intimate knowledge of the fees they require for their services?"

He appeared stunned, shocked by my response to what he obviously believed to be a routine question, one that could be asked of any taxi driver in any city of the world, with the expectation of the receipt of a simple answer like “Twenty bucks.” He looked at me for several seconds, obviously not knowing what to say.

And then, suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown in his skull, I can see the little light bulb go on. His brain has finally analyzed what I just said to him, and he doesn’t like the obvious implication. So he says,

“H-e-e-e-y-y-y! Are you implying that I’m a degenerate?”

“Sir,” I reply, “I prefer not to make implications when bold statements of fact will do. Suffice it to say that I am not a degenerate. As to your own moral inadequacies, well, that I leave to you. Good day to you, Sir, that will be twenty dollars.”

Oddly enough, he didn’t give much of a tip. And I thought that we had been getting on well together. Some people!

The Hamburger
It was later on that same evening that I realized that we as a society use computers way too much, and it’s making some people dumber. I stopped into a local fast food franchise, intending to procure my evening meal. Now, I don’t want to reveal the name of the chain, but this clown at the drive through window told me that the store was closed; I’d have to go to another location. Being hungry, and a little perturbed by this turn of events, I asked him how this could be so.

“I mean,” I asked, “Aren’t you open twenty-four hours a day?”

“Yes we are, under normal circumstances. But the computers are down.”

So I said, “Now, call me old fashioned, but what in the hell does a computer have to do with cooking up a burger and fries? I’ve always thought that you just had someone throw the meat on the grill, and stand by to turn it when each side was done.”

“Actually, Sir,” he said, “We don’t actually use the computer to cook the burger."

I knew I was going to have problems with this guy after hearing him use the word "actually" two times in one sentence.

"But," he continued, "it does run the cash register, which I need in order to make the sale.”

“Let me tell you something, kiddo,”

I say at this point,

“I’ve been ordering the same hamburger for years. It’s been priced at ninety-nine cents, plus tax, for years. Now I know, and you know, and I know you know, and you know I know you know, that the price of the burger, fully loaded, with all the bells and whistles, including license, tax, registration, dealer prep and delivery fees, comes to exactly one dollar and eight cents! So why don't you just cook the damn hamburger, give it to me, I’ll give to the money, and you can write down the sale and enter it later. That way everyone’s happy, or at least I’m happy, and that’s all that really matters, right? Make the freakin’ customer happy, right?"

"‘Cause I gotta tell you, right now I am very unhappy, and you hold the power to end my unhappiness, and bring a little joy in my otherwise bleak existence. Come on! Look at me! I’m driving a cab, for God’s sake! You have to know how much that hamburger means to me! It’s more than just sustenance! Right now, it’s my lifeline to sanity! A reminder that I can have things from a life outside of the inside of this cab! Please, oh God, please, make me a hamburger! I am begging you to show some compassion! Feed me! Feed Me!”

Well, that hamburger man must have been made of titanium, because he just wouldn’t budge. My story had left him unmoved, for nary a teardrop did I see at the corners of his eyes, which weren’t even moist. He watched me abase myself, reducing myself to a quivering lump of jelly, begging for a burger, but still, he would not help me.

Woe was me. Hell, for all I know, it was the computer that had the instructions for making the burger, which would prove my assertion that computers are making us dumber. I drove out of there a broken, hungry, saddened man, filled with the realization that the milk of human kindness just does not flow from some people, but empty of burger.

Sigh. I guess next time I’ll pack a lunch.

Well, friends, I’ve enjoyed our time together. These are all true stories. They actually happened exactly the way I have told them to you. I may have exaggerated just a little, in the interests of poetic license, and all that, but it’s the truth nonetheless. I’ll see you all next time. Please exit on the curb side of the vehicle, and watch your step getting out.

Have a nice day, and so long!

(A version of this post first appeared in the July 10, 2003 edition of "Fast Lane Magazine," a Phoenix, Arizona biweekly entertainment magazine, under the byline of 'Matt "The Cab Guy" Kelly.')