About a month ago I went to a conference near Philadelphia, PA for work. My travel schedule went a little like this:
- Depart Louisville, KY at 4:45 PM EST (I got to the airport at 4:00, but that’s another story)
- Arrive in Cleveland, OH for a brief layover
- Arrive in Philadelphia, PA
- Somehow get to King of Prussia, PA
I had a hotel to stay at for the conference. The shuttle service didn’t run past 6PM. So the obvious alternative is to get a cab. I’m not very well-versed in giving cab instructions, especially in a place I’m not familiar with, especially to a place which is > 20 minutes away in another city. So while in Cleveland, I look to my dad for advice. He just says go for it with the cab and if they don’t know what you’re talking about, find another one. That’s Dad, always practical.
Then it got weird.
“You need a ride to King of Prussia?” a random older (40s-50s) man said. Then time kind of stopped. It was a classic devil on the shoulder/angel on the shoulder situation… except I couldn’t tell which voice was evil. I looked at the man — he looks fairly clean, probably a businessman. He was bigger than me, which was kind of worrisome.
“Dude, you’re just as likely to be chopped up and left in a ditch when you’re stepping into a cab. This guy already knows where you’re going and he speaks English”, one of the unidentifiable voices in my head said to me.
“Yeah,” I said, “we’ll meet up after the flight?”
“Sounds good.”
The guy turned out to be pretty cool. We talked a little shop about computers, but he turned out to be a minister. I offered him $60 (which would have been the cab fair) but he wouldn’t take any money.
As a direct result of this story, my mother and sister think I am a complete idiot.
While I tend to agree with your mom and sister, you’ll never have those life experiences taking the safe road. Your young with no dependents. You should have freaked the guy out at the end of the ride. Let it slip that you were thinking about hacking him up until you found out he was a nice guy.
Laf! That’s an awesome, although somewhat… lucky story. I’m just glad I still have an Andy-Hill-esque friend… things could have gone so different.
Anyway, that’s really cool.
Dude, 99.99% of people are nice people. It was a safe bet and probably a cool experience.
Then again, that 0.01% would have been an even better story!