It's quite late on a Sunday evening, and I tell my passenger, a tipsy middle-aged man with a comb-over, that it's almost certainly closed. He asks for other recommendations as to what's open at this hour. He's not exactly the Roxy type, so I hesitate.
"Tell me, where do you and the other cab drivers go?"
"I don't speak for the others, but I myself go to Holman's."
So we're off, and he insists I come in and eat, leaving the meter running. "Oh, I'll tip you like two, three hundred bucks, don't worry about it, come have dinner with me." I roll my third eye at that, but I am hungry. And so we talk. And talk. And talk.
I remind him of his ex-wife, apparently. "She's about your age, that was part of the problem, really. But she's a researcher like you, into neuroscience, although she's a straight biologist and you're more like a psychologist."
Nascent psychologist that I am, I ask the gentle questions, say the appropriate reinforcing things. I want to help him. He seems like a good guy. And when I drop him in front of his house, he does in fact write in a $300 tip on the credit slip. "That's about what I pay my therapist, and I got more out of tonight than I usually do sitting on her couch."
I'm stunned, both by the tip and the compliment. And he didn't even ruin it by asking for my phone number.
And shall we discuss the neural basis of moral cognition? Serotonin deficits in the amygdala? ;)
What's "not right" about that guy?? The fact that he has a lot of money, a combover, or goes to therapy??
I've had customers leave me $100 tips before just for serving them COFFEE with a smile and open ear, because apparently it was the right timing.
Evandors: Some day you're going to be the one drunk, middleaged with a combover, and whining to your cabbie about your pathetic life cuz she's a better therapist than your own!
On my previous comment, i apologize, i am touchy these days.
evandors, I once served as a volunteer counselor at an AIDS clinic, and will eventually finish a degree that will allow me to have a real practice. Why is it icky to accept money for something that I used to do for free and will eventually do for money in the future?
And for you to define this man is "not right" is cruel and ill-informed. Ask anyone who recently went through a divorce. They usually need or want to talk about it, whether to a therapist, their friends, or just the service industry people that end up serving them. That a woman that reminded this man so much of his ex was able to be kind and helpful to him did a great deal towards helping him reconcile his bitterness towards her. And there is nothing immoral about _that_.