Short Cut

We were on our way to take some of the new staff to the Portages’ Club (a hangout for Expats) so we hopped a couple of cabs. Seth and I hailed a taxi and got in with our new tech. coordinator. We weren’t far from our destination and traffic wasn’t too bad but our driver decided to take a short cut off the main road for some reason. When he tried to cut down a side street to get back to the main road he apparently found the only one-way street in Alex that is actually is marked and monitored. All the people along the street where pointing and yelling at him telling him it was a one way street. And at the end of the street there were two police officers just waiting for him. So one officer came over and as he was walking toward the car our driver tried the throw it in reverse and back out of the street, however, another car was blocking him so the police man caught up. Then our driver didn’t want to talk with him and acted like he was ignoring him. The officer opened up his door and the cabbie literally started to push the officer away. The officer got the door open so our driver tried to speed away while the officer was still hanging on to the door so the officer tried to hang on and got his feet on the door frame inside the car so finally our taxi driver stopped and talked to the cop. He got him out of the car and they walked away for awhile. We were so shocked at our driver’s actions that we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know what etiquette was. Should we wait? How long would this take? How long should we sit there? Is the cabby going to try to scam us into paying the ticket? Should we just get out and walk or hail another cab? After about 15 minutes we finally decide to leave a few pounds in the divers’ seat and get out and walk, then the officer and the driver stopped their discussion and said they were finished so we got back in. When we finally arrived at our destination we were 30 minutes late but with a good story to tell about our short cut.