Tales from the cab side…

Tonight, as opposed to those covered in previous columns, is wrapped in a cloak of boredom and meagre turnover. Stranded at a slow procession of differing taxi stands throughout the greater Reykjavik area, end of the month depleted wallets and the exam season conspire to rob my ilk and I of our livelihood. Neal Stephenson comes to the rescue in the form of The Diamond Age; A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, whilst in the background Neurosis lulls me into contemplative submission teetering on the borders of LaLa land.
The late spring evening drifts uneventfully into a light shade of darkness and unfolds with a two o’clock sunrise ripe with prank orders and un-lucrative sprint distance fares.
The customary post midnight rush won’t pick up and I’m reduced to cruising and poaching middle-aged prey in the more fertile dinner party infested suburbs. The middle aged notoriously cannot hold their liquor and the seething bickering of an après dinner party couple, one of whom which has inevitably over imbibed, lends it self to a fare less rancid only to a heard of menopausal females all atwitter with the roaring rambunctiousness of a girls night out.
Among the same old comments along the lines of me being young enough to be the son of a drunken heifer, said heifers pitch beer-goggled remarks about my perceived handsomeness and then, at my failure to smile and rejoice, the cheerfully inebriated invariably turn to bitchingly berating me for not brimming with a festive spirit.
The herds, oblivious to anything but reminiscing in shrill shrieks about girls nights of yore, pay up and disperse at such dens of desperation as Players in a manner eating away at the hour as greedily as they did in slowly amassing in the vehicle from tardy goodbyes at their abandoned dinner parties.
As the notion of punching out early is grabbing hold, the front passenger door is swung open and Hank Moody (an alias of course) plants his lanky self in the shotgun seat. Hank is, as ususal, brimming with animated stories and seemingly more anxious to disperse jokes and good humour then to get home and pass out. Hence I employ him for comic relief until the point that coincidence floats us a fare in the vicinity of his address. We then tour the city night performing the Moody Show on stretches of street as far as his home in Kópavogur. Still, Hank’s deadpan delivery along with his scathing doses of sarcasm often fails to elicit much cheer from my ride sharing customers, so we mete ourselves the largest shares of laughter once offended customers have paid up and alighted.
After an odd hour or two of sowing un-PC jokes and reaping all shades of offence, we leave a threesome of youngsters uncomfortably re-evaluating the sexual nature of their friendships and – having depleted Hank’s stock of insults – call it a night.