The Mind of a Cat Doctor

"The Taxi Ride from Hell"

This past weekend, Dr. Filip and I went to an ophthalmology conference (more about what we learned later). We flew Southwest to San Antonio and stayed at the Hyatt on the Riverwalk, where the conference was being held.

After we got off the plane in San Antonio, Dr. F and I hunted down a taxi to take us to the hotel where we were staying. We stumbled across and old, enebriated-looking driver willing to take us as passengers. If he hadn't been standing next to his taxi, I'd have thought he was a wandering homeless man.

We got into his taxi, which was a minivan. It took Dr. F and I six minutes to figure out the seatbelts, and after that six minutes, I was still unbuckled. I had given up. Actually, this shouldn't surprise you since I was the only one who could read in pre-school, however, I was the last 1st-grader to learn how to tie her shoes. And it took 4 more days of holding my foot out to my teacher for her to tie my shoes until I could do it more than one time in a row.

Back to the story...

The taxi driver drove off, and Dr. Filip commented, “Well, I guess we should start making your funeral arrangements.” “That’s not funny”, I replied. So we started out on the highway toward downtown, and 5 minutes into our drive, I turned my head toward the road in front of us. We were approaching 90 mph (well, it seemed like it anyway), and out of the distance appeared a big fat tire right in the middle of our lane coming at us at what seemed 90 mph. The tire advanced rapidly until it was about 10 feet in front of our van. It was then I realized the driver didn’t see the tire in road 10 feet in front of us in the middle of the road approaching us at 90 miles an hour, like I had. I screamed #@$%^&#!!!. When my expletive was complete, the huge thump! caused me to hit my head on the ceiling of the van and Dr. Filip to wake from his drooling slumber.

My neck hurt. Bad. “Oh my God, I’m SO sorry”, the taxi driver said, “I didn’t see the tire!” I looked at a bug-eyed Dr. Filip and we mouthed another expletive to each other. I again tried to fasten my seatbelt, and I reminded Dr. Filip about the comment he’d made about planning my funeral.

The taxi driver slowed down for a few seconds, then sped back up after he thought we had recovered from the tire incident.

Not two minutes later, speeding along at what seemed 90 mph, I saw a car in the lane to the right of us closing in on my side of the van. I believe it was the taxi that had swerved into the next lane right into a late 90’s model Celica. The car struck the side of the van near the front passenger’s side door. Again, an expletive flew out of my mouth, and Dr. Filip finally appeared concerned. Both drivers exited the highway and pulled into a Bank of America parking lot.

I frantically tried again to buckle my seat belt. Successful! The driver then radioed the police to report the accident, and told us that he wasn’t charging us for the ride. Whew! A minute later, the driver radioed another taxi to come pick us up while he exchanged insurance information with the victim. Then the driver turned to us and said, “The total is $18.70.” I turned to Dr. Filip and said, “I thought he wasn’t charging us!” “Yeah, I thought you weren’t charging us!”, Dr. Filip exclaimed. The driver mumbled something as Dr. Filip handed him a twenty. I guess we tipped him too, but only because we didn’t want him touching us with his change.

All of a sudden, another taxi drove up and Ozzy Osbourne leapt out of the driver’s side door, ran up to our taxi, and stuck his head in our heads and said, “Yo, man, sorry for all the drama man!”. I got a close enough look at his face to realize it WASN’T really Ozzy, but just a cheap imitation. My heart sank. He had the blue-tinted round framed glasses, was wearing an Ozzy T-Shirt and black pants, and after sitting in his cab for 2 minutes, signed his business card “Ozzie”, spelled incorrectly.

Yes, I said SITTING in his cab. Ozzie, without our knowledge, radioed ANOTHER taxi driver to finish taking us to our hotel. The 3rd driver pulled up. I looked to see if he looked crazy, and instead, looked like the 1st driver.

This driver was teased the whole way by Dr. Filip, who had to endure this driver’s stories of accidents he’s been in. I stopped paying attention. We arrived safely after pulling up at 90 miles per hour.

MAN, MY PLANE RIDE WAS GREAT! THANKS SOUTHWEST!!

Love, Me.