I think I've developed a pathological hatred for cab drivers. Though I wouldn't call it a proper statistical sampling, I've had my share of encounters nonetheless.
New York: Are 10 out of every 12 cars in this town actually large yellow taxis pedal-to-the-metal? Pedestrians, by definition, can't be too bright attempting to cross 5th Avenue... or 1st Avenue or Madison Avenue, whathaveyou. These psychotic bastards blaze and careen in fleets; 3 or 4 wide, 6 or 9 deep. Traffic lights be damned! We are the champions, my friends, and we'll keep on flying to your end. I swear, some of them have humanoid silhouettes pasted on their doorsides.
Washington D.C.: The most timid little wankers on wheels (courtesy of Fred's two feet). Slow. Slower. Slowest. You honk at 'em from behind -- Get a move-on, fucker! That only slows 'em down. I fantasize being on one of those Cop-video shows where I tap their bumper and watch 'em fishtail off the side of Key Bridge.
Boston: These are the most maddening sonsabitches. Drive in the left lane. Always. Go the speed limit. Never more (quothe the Raven), never less. Unless, of course, you try to pass 'em; then they fuck with you. Which ought to make for a tidy summary of their collective conciousness: "We drive to fuck witchu, mahn!"
And which brings me to my other fantasy, sort of a Double-Oh-Seven-Dr.-No feature: An anti-grav ray that I can activate with a button. My grill recedes under my hood and a beam fires out at the car in front of me. Nothing happens at first, but then, subtlely, the targetted chassis lifts up, then the wheels come off the ground.
Up, up... up... a tiny blip in the sky. And then... gone.
Sometimes I imagine the car returns gently back to the lane from whence it came and continues onward -- after I'm long gone. Other times it rises to the stratosphere and then comes crashing violently back to Earth. And then there are the times I will the car to reach escape velocity, leaving the planet entirely. Of course the Sun's gravity-well grabs hold of it, drawing it toward its inevitable doom. The bet then is whether the car and its passengers burns to a cinder before or during its crash into the Sun's corona, or maybe the vacuum of space makes them bloat beyond capacity, eyeballs bulging and protruding outward...
... just before they go *Pop!*
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