The hunt

This morning I arrived at work a little disappointed: absolutely nothing noteworthy occured on the ride in. So I got my morning coffee and settled down as usual - 9:37AM. Then the phone rang. It was the security guard from the front gate:

SECURITY: "You just arrived by taxi, yes? The driver is looking for you. Please come to the gate to meet him."

I hung up and started to dash for the exit. As I was walking, lazy me started thinking: "damn, the gate is so far away, and I'll have to walk down and up those 3 flights of stairs again." Before I knew it, my fingers were already redialing the guard's extension: "Do you mind asking the driver to come to the other entrance? It's closer."

9:42AM - Excellent, I've just saved myself 5 minutes of walking, and countless hours of complaining. I hopped downstairs to the other (much closer) entrance, and waiting. 1 minute. 2 minutes. 5 minutes. The guy is driving 200 feet, what could possibly be taking this long?

9:49AM - I went back upstairs and called the guard again. He told me that the cabbie was waiting for me in the cafeteria. Why? No time to ask. I head off to the caf.

9:50AM - I jogged into the cafeteria. I scanned the rows of lunch tables, but saw no one except one of the cleaners taking care of the breakfast mess. Confused, I stood there for a minute contemplating my next move. Just when I turned around to leave, a kind janitor waved me down: "Are you X? Someonw was waiting for you. He went down to administration."

Great. Not only can I not find this mysterious cabbie, but now he's sending me all over the building on a driver-hunt. 9:55AM - I left the cafeteria and started searching for signs to send me in the right direction. I'd only been down to the administration area once, and that was on my first day. It's a labrynth of cubicles and locked glass offices that I have no clue how to navigate. Not very welcoming.

I wandered the basement halls for a few minutes, not quite sure which door to enter. Just then, through a port-hole-sized glass window, I located the familiar face of my morning ride. I beeped into the room, satisfied that the journey was finally over. 9:59AM. Turns out that the cabbie had forgotten to take an imprint of my card, so the trip had been worthless to him. Now I understand why he was so determined.

He tore out a blank Visa slip, and reentered the amount with a pen. But something was different. The amount was the same, but the 'tip' area was blank. Was this cabbie trying to swindle me into tipping more than the 20% + I had already left for him this morning. Sneaky. Slightly repulsed, I resentfully obliged, and added another dollar to the voyage.

It was now well after 10AM, and I suppose those extra 20 minutes were as painful for him as they had been for me. For the first time in months, it occured to me that taking the metro might not be as large an inconvenience as I always imagine.