Ships in the Night

Have you ever heard the expression, "Like two ships passing in the night?" It's supposed to be romantic code for a situation where two people who are meant to be together never quite meet up. I used to think it was just a tired Hollywood cliche. But not anymore...
Done with a day of trying to grind out a living on the mean streets of Phoenix, I decided to try my luck over at the Greyhound Bus Station cab stand. At about eight in the evening, I pulled up to the station, saw another driver in the first position, so I parked in the "on-deck" area. I got out of the car, and walked over to the other driver, to catch up on the bus schedule, and the events of the day.

While we were talking, a young man of about twenty to twenty-three years of age came up to me. As the other driver was sitting in his cab's driver's seat, all ready to go, I tried to make the sale for him:

"Taxi, Sir?"

His answer was not a no, nor a yes either, but a geographic inquiry:

"How far is Tempe?"

"Depends on where you want to go in Tempe. But the closest part is about five or six miles away."

"Is there a Ross in Tempe?"

"You mean the clothing store?"

"Right."

"Yes, there is, at the Arizona Mills Mall, at the northeast corner of I-10 and Baseline Road."

From here, the conversation starts to go all over the map, so I'm going to cut it down quite a bit for the sake of brevity and sanity. Apparently he was supposed to meet his girlfriend, who worked at the Ross Clothing Store, and wanted to make sure he went to the right one. Later events proved that as our conversation was all over the map, so was his thinking. He should have just stayed at the station.

Opening the first-up driver cab's passenger door, I said,

"So does this mean that you need a taxi to the Ross, sir?"

"Yes."

"Hop in," I said, pointing to the driver. "He'll take care of you."

As they started to take off, I walked back to my cab, to move it into the first-place spot. After doing so, I hung out around the side of the cab for a few minutes, then went inside the station for a moment. What for, I can't remember. Age, and, a hundred thousand road miles per year will do that to you.

I came outside to see a woman talking to a gentleman, who pointed me out and said,

"I think he's the driver."

I sprung into action.

"Need a cab ma'am?"

"Yeah, I need to go to the Arizona Mills Mall."

Opening the passenger door for the cab, I wondered if I had just heard her right. Was it possible... Naw! Couldn't be. It only happens in the movies. The woman, also of about age twenty to twenty-three got in the cab. I closed the door, and went around to the driver's side. Settling my more than amble rear-end into the seat cushions, I started the engine, and we were off.

"You know, the last guy who left out of here also went to the Mills Mall."

"Your last fare went to the Mall?"

"Well, he wasn't my fare, another driver took him. But I talked to him for a couple of minutes. He said he had to meet his girlfriend at Ross."

"I work at Ross!", she exclaimed."

Just then her cell phone rang. She had a brief conversation that ended with the words,

"I'll be there soon. Yeah, I love you too."

I resumed our conversation.

"Wow. That's kind of weird. What a coincidence. Some cabbie takes a guy to Ross, and you work there."

"The guy on the phone was someone I was supposed to meet at the Greyhound. I've been there since six o'clock, waiting for him to show up! I guess he left before I even got there, because he called me just a few minutes ago, and said he was at the Ross at Arizona Mills. But what's odd, I don't even work at that store. I used to, but not anymore."

Well, it was about eight-twenty right now.

"No, you must have misunderstood me. The fellow I was talking to left the Greyhound not ten minutes before you walked up to my cab. And you were there since six? What time was his bus supposed to have arrived."

"Five o'clock. For a while I thought maybe he had missed his bus, but just now on the phone he told me his bus got in on time, and he had been there waiting for me. He thought I worked at that Ross, and decided to just go meet me there."

"And you've been there since six? And didn't see him? Couldn't you have called him on his cell phone?"

"No, he doesn't have one. He called me from the phone of one of the Ross employees. They remember who I am, and must have trusted him."

"So let me get this straight," I said. "You two were going to meet at the bus station. His bus got there at five o'clock, and he was on it. You got there at about six, and never saw him. But he was there the whole time?"

"Yeah. Strange, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Just like two ships passing in the night," I thought.

Further conversation revealed that they had only seen each other once, several months ago, and she really only knew him from pictures and phone conversations. He came to visit her, I guess so they could get to know each other better. She told me that she had circled the station several times, and even had him paged, to no avail. Eventually, she gave up, and was about to go home, when he called her on her phone. Because she had been dropped off at the Greyhound by a friend, she needed a cab to go meet him at the Ross, across the street from where she lived, which is how I entered the picture.

Pulling into the mall, I went over to the Ross store. The young man I had last seen at the Greyhound, some thirty minutes ago, was sitting on a bench outside. The woman handed me a twenty for a sixteen dollar fare, and said to keep the change. Thanking me, she started to get out of the cab, then paused and said,

"I bet you see this type of thing all the time, don't you?"

"No ma'am, this is a new one to me. It's funny, and kind of romantically screwy all at the same time. Thanks for your business. I hope you two have a nice life. This will be quite a story for your grandchildren!"

She giggled and closed the door. I drove away, back to the Greyhound, laughing or giggling almost the whole way there. The experience had made my night.

I'm glad those two found each other. How many missed opportunities have we all experienced, because our ships had passed us in the night?

Sincerely,

The Cab Guy