http://tinyurl.com/6a7uf4

There's no way any of you have had a weirder conversation this week.

Yeah, I was gonna talk about finding out how a co-worker spent some time on his honeymoon lying next to Simon Cowell on the beach and didn't bother striking the tiniest bit of conversation, but, uh...

You win, Neal.

It's those kinds of conversations--and I've had a few with cabbies driving me to the suburbs after late nights at work--that make me parrot one of my favorite lines from Repo Man: "Did you eat a lot of acid back in the hippie days?"

I prefer to think as taxicab rides as miniature performance art pieces.

that's "of" not "as" (the first one).

proof-reading, grr.

I've only had one cab ride in my life. It was in Chicago after eating dinner downtown. It was about a five minute ride to the train station and the cabbie spent the entire time talking to a friend on his blue tooth (I don't know how this new fangled stuff is spelled).

I hate hate hate those ear pieces. I use to work at Max's school and every day this dad would come in talking a mile a minute, acknowledge no one (bugged my mom to pieces), and swoop his kids out. I wanted to tear it off his damned head and stuff it up his ass.

That is odd. Really odd. I'm so surprised that his marriage ended.

The weirdest cab ride conversation I've ever had was in San Francisco, too. Our cabbie was an anti-Semite as well, but of the Jordanian variety. My husband's brother and I kinda look Jewish (whatever that means) so he was giving us odd looks in the cab. This was until my BIL told him that his neighbor and good friend when he was a patient at the Mayo clinic was King Hussein of Jordan. Then the guy loved us, and decided to drive EVEN faster, as a favor to us. He was literally hanging out the window cursing and flipping off pedestrians and other drivers.

This and the other thread on when you moved the kid out of your room is making me cranky.

You general, I meant. Not you specific.

Eww. Just, eww!

I actually had a similarly odd conversation yesterday with a neighbor. A lot of talk about how awful the anti-Catholic sentiment is in our neighborhood, followed by a LENGTHY discussion of how the PUBLIC schools, and even the Catholic schools, are too secular. He then proceeded to make awful statements about black people, Jewish people, cops, and the kindergarten teacher that Ana will have this fall (apparently the neighbor called the teacher a bitch, to her face). Then he wrapped it all up by discussing his volunteer work, which consists of helping gay/lesbian folk live sacred lives by remaining celibate.

The conversation lasted over an hour, and I didn't do much besides saying the occasional "uh huh" and looking longingly back at my house. The guy is lucky that 1- I have no balls, 2- my kid was in his house playing with his daughter at the time (NOT happening again), and 3- I still have to live next to him, or I would have gone off on his ass in about 20 different directions. Prick.

Also, YUCK. I'll confess to getting busy with Eric in the same room as Ana, when she was much younger, but over her?! What does that even mean?

Wow! Maybe he was trying to be poetic. Although "The Waiting", this story was not - it kind of was.

If anybody gets that reference, I would be shocked and amazed. But it is one of my favorite poems, written by one of my favorite poets, and believe me the relevance is shockingly there.

Your first mistake was admitting to being a parenting expert.

Yeah, it must be said, "parenting expert" is kind of an easy pitch to hit one out of the park.

My favorite was a cab ride in Alexandria, Egypt where we were waiting to backload Naptha. I took a cab to see the sights.....

You want Girl?

No.

You want boy?

No.

You dont like people?

No

You want Animals?

Pull over, I changed my mind, I'll get out here.

I once had a cabbie ask me for my phone number. His reason? "You have hairy arms. I like hairy women."