My passenger is about 40, extraordinarily beautiful, with bone structure that ensures she'll remain so for another 40 years. "Have you noticed that?" she asks. Despite having extinguished her cigarette, she continues to gesture expansively in the manner of someone still holding one. "Oh, I know," I laugh. "How many lesbians do you know with 4-inch fingernails?"
"I only remember two," she sighs. "So," she continues, "you've made some genuine inquiry regarding this issue?" I love this woman; she doesn't talk, she expounds. Yet she's not the annoying pedant who speaks only to hear herself talk. Her eye holds the gleam of the true provocateur. I'll be outmatched no matter what I say, yet enjoy it nonetheless. "A bit," I say, "but not as much as you have, I suspect."
She has a marvelous, throaty laugh that goes with the nonexistent cigarette and the equally nonexistent martini glass that should be in her other hand. "Indeed! I've spent a great deal of mental energy on the topic."
"Field research?" I ask.
"Oh, scads and scads of it." "Scads" is a favorite of mine, as is the equally archaic "screed"—which, bless her, is next. "Problem is, you can seldom find any intelligent discussion of the subject. It all just degenerates into feminist screed." I take a wild guess. "Were you a women's studies major in college?" She positively howls and insists we stop for a drink.
Stereotype this week: sexual sophisticate woman, I suppose. Really this week comes off more like a "Scooby-Doo Movie" where they have guest stars. This week it's Meryl Streep?
Line of the week: "...she doesn't talk, she expounds. Yet she's not the annoying pedant who speaks only to hear herself talk..." Hmmm. So NC2 is a self-loathing cab journalist?
Brag of the week: "She positively howls and insists we stop for a drink." This answers the usual phony deprecation a few paragraphs before: "I'll be outmatched no matter what I say..." So, she sets up this formidable sexywoman then bests her by making her howl and beg to go drinking with her? WOW, NC2, you did it again! You've won another disciple as you innocently go your merry way.
Quite a Sherlock our cabbarella is, too: a woman gets in her cab with great cheek bones (girlspeak for "fat woman") who talks disparagingly about lesbian porn and feminist screeds and our girl SOMEHOW, by some MIRACLE of INTELLECT and DEDUCTION concludes she was a Womens Studies Major. Arthur Conan Doyle call yer office!
Dear Beknighted Cabbie: wake up and realize how supremely boring it is to have you win EVERY week. Here's the formula again: fabulous person rides in cab, and loves cabbie/stupid person rides in cab and is enlightened by cabbie.
If the column annoys you that much, don't read it. There's a wide, wide world of literature awaiting your cunning analysis.
This was before the internet. Now this hypothetical unpublished would-be "writer" doesn't even have to get past the editorial policy of some small-town daily (or weekly.) He can just find a PUBLISHED columnist that he doesn't like (or secretly admires?) and flame on in the comment box.
How's that workin' out for ya, Cedric? Do you feel like a "real" writer yet? Keep trying--we love it.
Oh, and...BE HAPPY, EVERYBODY!!