Date Taken: 4/2/07
From: Wicker Park
To: State and Illinois
The Cab: Well-tended, but drowning in a heavy, stale vanilla scent made worse by how it was disconcertingly slightly too warm in there. A nice leather hand strap thingie hung from the cab ceiling near the door, though, which was kind of nice. I guess if you have to grab something and hang on, Driver #6681 wants you to grab something with class, as opposed to the drunk skanks his typical riders probably bring with them.
[That “leather hand strap thingie” is often referred to as a Jesus Stap – so named so you’d have something to hold onto and scream “JEEEEEEE-SUS!!!!” when drivers go wild. I once had a 1988 Honda Civic that had a Jesus Handle for the front passenger. Came in handy at times. – Scott Buckner]
The Driver: Didn’t say a word. Failed to chuckle listening to an NPR report about comedy when one comic interviewed said, “Cancer and rape. I don’t find those very funny,” which, of course, was a funny bit, but chuckled when the same comic said, “Holocaust Schmolocaust.” So, you know . . . kind of uncomfortable.
The Driving: Driver #6681 was pretty impressive out of the gate, but visibly deflated when he made what appeared to be a poor choice taking the freeway downtown instead of Milwaukee Avenue. As he barreled down the entrance ramp off Milwaukee and saw a jammed-up Kennedy, I could feel him feeling my disappointment. But the lane to the Ohio exit parted like the Red Sea and morale in the cab rebounded nicely. “He’s back!” I wrote in my notes. The end of the trip, however, also included the slight but recoverable error on his part of not knowing exactly where Star of Siam was, nor, it seemed briefly, the location of the State and Illinois intersection. He also nearly committed a low-impact fender-bender by coming close to hitting a van in front of us while apparently distracted by jingling change in his pocket. So, kind of a fun ride, but not really.
Overall rating: 1.5 extended arms.
– Steve Rhodes
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There are more than 6,000 cabs in the city of Chicago. We intend to review every one of them.
Posted on April 6, 2007