Yes, there ARE poets in New Rochelle! And they are reckless drivers!

As if delivered from the gods, TWO of my questions (#1 and #14) from yesterday's post have already been answered. All it took was five bucks to get to the root of this one, folks.

First of all, although I usually tromp the hellish wind tunnel past the Trump Plaza to and from the New Rochelle train station, I just couldn't do it tonight. For about the second time since I've lived here, I decided to take a cab home.

As those of you who do this regularly already know, the cab drivers here are willing to pack in a couple of extra passengers and deliver them one by one to their homes, school-bus style, charging each what a ride straight to his or her home would have cost.

I jumped into the front seat of a cab already occupied by two passengers in the back. The driver roared off while I fumbled for the seat belt, which was stuck fast.

"Aw, don't worry about that," he said. "I got insurance!" He immediately pulled right into the path of a car, which honked and swerved out of the way. Insurance? I continued to "worry" with unusual fervor about the seat belt until it was secure.

Meanwhile, we were driving over half of New Ro to deliver the first passenger. As he whipped around on her street, he suddenly announced that the gas tank was on "red line empty." It began beeping ominously.

"I can make it!" he shrieked. "Let's keep going!"

"If you run outta gas," said the woman from the back. "I will be I-rate!"

"Me too!" I chirped. We were steadily getting farther away from my home and walking was now an impossible prospect.

He dithered about it for a while, driving erratically about the city, while the indicator beeped.

"Get gas NOW!" said the other passenger.

"Aw, maybe I stop and get some gas. You ladies like that Hillary Clinton?"

"I prefer Barack Obama," I said, and the other passenger agreed.

"But she is a woman. You're not sticking with your kind?" he said, aghast that we would so betray our gender. "She's got all that experience in the White House!"

"Grrr," I said. Other Passenger and I both explained our reasons for supporting Obama. Cab driver still clearly regarded us as traitors to femalekind. Meanwhile, he pulled wildly into the "Jesus King of Kings" gas station on North Avenue. This station is all about delivering Jesus with your fossil fuels, and is covered with bumper stickers that shout "Repent America!" But the best thing about it is that right across the street we have the MACKADOCIOUS Hair Salon. You have not lived until you get your bangs trimmed at a place called MACKADOCIOUS.

We waited while the driver filled the tank. Then he roared off in his wild way, yammering about Hillary's qualifications the whole time. "She's a woman! She's powerful! She's got the stuff! etc. etc." We were unmoved.

After he dropped off the other passenger, made two illegal turns, and shot the wrong way up a one-way street on the way to my house, my cab driver then informed me that he is a published poet!

I think that he has been inspired by our fair city, eh? Sky scrappers, indeed!