One of the more interesting parts of my internship this
summer involves taking trips to Capitol Hill, whether to deliver letters or
attend meetings. With an office just north of the White House, that usually
means taking a 20-minute cab ride to and from the Hill. Having only taken a
taxi once before in my life, in London, no less, I’ve had to quickly learn the
procedures and etiquette for a cab rider, and I’ve had no shortage of memorable
experiences.
Sometimes it’s fun just to sit and observe. Such as on one
of the first rides I took, where our driver switched between speaking into his
Bluetooth in some unfamiliar language and singing loudly along to a Lady
Antebellum song on the radio, not missing a single accented word. And when his
phone rang again, the ringtone was “1812 Overture,” as if he could not become
any more perfect of an example of the beautiful mixing of cultures in America.
A few weeks later, in the middle of the organized chaos of the World Cup group
stage, four of us piled into a small car for a short, quiet ride. A few minutes
in, the driver turned the radio up to be just barely audible with the broadcast
of the tense Mexico-Brazil match. We all struck up a conversation about the
World Cup, and after he joked that he was from Ghana and was angry with us (The
U.S. beat Ghana the night before), we found out that he was actually from some
other country which hadn’t qualified for the tournament, and was torn between
rooting for the USA and Argentina. It struck me how powerful the World Cup
could be for bringing different countries and cultures together, but also just
how much you could learn about a person in such a short conversation.
On Thursday morning of last week, though, I had the most
memorable ride of the whole summer, and got out of car regretting the dozen or
so other times I had hailed a cab and said barely more than “can I get a
receipt?” for the whole ride. This time, after a few minutes with nothing but short,
mutual complaints about the traffic in downtown Washington, the driver broke
the silence with a simple, harmless question. He looked into the rearview
mirror and asked, “Sir? Sir? If possible, would you be able to pay in cash?”
That wasn’t a problem; I always have to use cash on trips for my internship,
but I still curiously asked why cash was preferred. With this, he started a
lengthy, passionate explanation of how even though every cab is required to
have a working credit card reader, the money goes through 3 different companies
which skim some off the top before it reaches the drivers who actually earn it,
a week later. He also explained that if a driver claims that the card reader is
broken, they are lying, because with it out of order, so would be the meter. “Don’t
believe nothing anybody tells you,” he urged me. But as he explained the time
and income lost with every businessperson unthinkingly swiping the company
card, I understood why a hard-working driver would do whatever they could to
get fares paid in cash. As he explained the heavy fines that these drivers
risk, he said that he has to support his family instead of risking a $1,000
citation, so “I just try to ask every rider politely. What does it hurt? Some
of them, like you, understand.”
As he turned up 15th Street, next to the White
House, he asked me what I was doing in DC and I gave the automatic, vague
description that I always do, and when he asked where I was from, I just said
Ohio, for some reason assuming he’d be totally unfamiliar with the Midwest. But
then he asked more, and when I told him The Ohio State University in Columbus,
he excitedly asked what I was studying and how I liked Washington. He earnestly
explained that even with some “bad drivers, and bad politicians,” Washington is
the best and most beautiful city he knows. But then he surprised me by saying
that he’s actually spent a lot of time in Ohio, in Dayton and Cincinnati, and a
short time in Columbus. For the last five minutes of the ride, we talked all
about Columbus and his experience there which he recalled fondly, and he
eagerly asked all about the city and what I thought about it, having lived my
whole life there.
When we arrived at my office, he wished me a good final two
weeks in DC, and I got out of the car doing my best to process our 15 minutes
of conversation. It confirmed to me that while there may be some bad drivers
out there, it’s worth the risk of waving one of them down to have the chance to
meet a really good one. It still amazes me just how much we had in common, and
it confirmed to me what an important, rich part of America first or
second-generation Americans taking these kinds of thankless jobs are. It reminded
me how important it is to ensure that genuinely hard-working people like this
get a truly fair chance, and that the American Dream isn’t just an empty, out
of reach myth. Now, at the very least, I
know to always make the effort to talk to drivers and anyone else I encounter;
you never know the kind of interesting person you’ll meet. And now instead of
calling an Uber, if I can find one I’ll always do my best to pay the few extra
dollars (in cash) for a cab.
Marcus Andrews
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