Cabbies are creepy

Hate to make generalizations, but we here at the Naperville City Desk have a lot of experience with cabbies, mostly in New York City, a little in Pennsylvania, and plenty of experience getting a ride from the western 'burbs to O'Hare.

I attended a convention in NYC a few years ago and took a cab from the Javitz center back to my hotel and quickly became convinced the cabbie was going to kill me. He had a hair-trigger temper and while I tried to remain as pleasant as possible to attempt to stay in the cabbie's good graces, the ride was an expletive-filled rage fest, with plenty of bitching about how effing stupid people are. I don't scare that easily and once I reached my destination I paid as quickly as I could and walked into my hotel shaking from feeling like I had literally dodged a bullet.

Then there was my Pennsylvanian Pakistani phone stalker. I was headed home for Christmas to see my family and arranged a shuttle ride to the Philly airport. Because I am friendly with all people I made small talk to pass the time in the one hour drive and the driver asked me for my phone number. I wasn't interested in him but I made the mental bet that 9 times out of 10 you give out your phone number and it never gets used so I figured I was safe. No. I wasn't even to my gate yet when he started calling me. The driver called 2 or 3 times a day nearly every day for three weeks but I never took any of the calls. Thank god I hadn't had him pick me up from my home. I was very grateful when the calls stopped.

Now I arrange taxi rides to O'Hare airport regularly and haven't had any truly heinous experiences but I have been picked up by drivers who seem to have an angry edge to them. Then there was the time I arranged for a 6 am pick-up and walked outside at 5:58 am only to see the taxi driving away. Apparently the driver thought maybe he had the wrong building so he decided to run by some of the neighboring buildings to see if anyone was coming out. I was annoyed by that one but held my tongue as I just wanted to get to the airport in one piece.

The point of relaying all these stories is that I now feel my underlying feeling that cabbies are creepy is justified, based on this article from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Ginny Narsete of Lisle was taking a cab to a train station and found a bag in the backseat marked with the logo of a Mexican restaurant. She looked in the bag and discovered it was a night deposit of $5,000 that had been left in the cab accidentally. Narsete owns a small business herself and never considered keeping the money so she told the driver what she had found and asked to be driven to the nearest police station.

That's when the cabbie started acting creepy, insisting that the money had to be taken to a cab stand and driving aimlessly, not taking her to her desired destination and running up the fare and refusing to let her out of the car. Narsete called her husband for advice and her husband spoke to the cabbie threatening to call 911 if his wife was not immediately taken to a police station. Finally the cabbie did as he was told and before leaving he insisted on being paid the full fare even though he had run up the total, taking Narsete's last $20.

Police at the station determined the cash was indeed from La Bamba restaurant and phoned the owners who were very grateful to get it back.

Narsete would accept no reward and her only regret is telling the cabbie what she had found, as she could have put herself in danger. She didn't even get all the way to the train station that was her intended destination; police were kind enough to drop her there.

Moral of the story: say nothing to the cabbie - take care of it yourself later from the safety of your own home or from driving yourself to a police station.

Bottom line? A lot of cabbies are creepy.