Let me tell you something about Washington, D.C.: those people know how it is.

I went down for a recruit visit at George Washington University, and D.C. definitely knew how to get my attention. I got to the airport in Maryland only to find out the shuttle to D.C. had just left and wouldn't be around for another 3 hours, and I opted for taking a taxi and sending the receipt to GW for reimbursement. After all, it was their bright notion to have me flown in to bloody Baltimore just to save dough, so they can pay the difference in cab fare. There was quite a backup in the cab line, and I swung into the first open door and kicked my suitcase onto the floor. We were about 100 yards into the airport exit gridlock when I noticed my driver.

This guy was Steve Buscemi’s twin brother coming off a month-long crank binge. Seriously twitchy, but handling the car like a southerner; surprisingly stately, with none of the psychotic merging and creative interpretation of speed limits that you get with a Boston cabbie. Dude looked seriously batty, which made me feel comfortable right away because, in my experience, you rarely have to worry about the overtly crazy. They're letting it all hang out, which leaves them nothing much to be pissed at. Cab Man was drinking something out of a black mug that smelled like Lemon Pledge and left his lips stained purple. I didn't ask. Instead, we talked about politics and the porno he found in his kid's room. Not about the fact that he found porno, but about the porno itself. Like I said, overtly crazy.

The fare came to over $60, which should give you an idea of how long Cab Man and I were bonding, and I tipped him $15 of GW's money (never hurts to tip the twitchy ones). It was surreal to enter a marble-trimmed hotel lobby after chatting up a borderline personality disorder for an hour, but I was dog-tired and I passed the fuck out as soon as I got to my room. I woke up about two hours later and went down to have a drink at the hotel bar, where I used the story of Cab Man to strike up conversation with a narcissistic red head. The red head didn't pan out, but there was a pinball machine and a trio of bored young lawyers to keep me busy for a while and I ended up going to bed at an acceptably atrocious hour.

Seven o’clock in the morning was extremely unpleasant, but I didn’t think it would do for me to show up late for a recruit visit the school was paying me to attend. The day was interesting only to a colossal nerd like myself, and I’ll spare you a detailed recounting of the tours and molecular biology mini-lectures. What was cool was that the grad students took us out for pizza and beers at the local campus watering hole, this preppy pub called the Foggy Bottom, and we ended up getting drunk enough that they had to get me bumped onto a later flight. My return cab ride to the airport was, I shit you not, none other than the Cab Man. He was deeply touched that I had thought to ask for him personally (which I hadn’t, but might have if I hadn’t been so loopy and if I had the slightest idea what his name was), and told me I was headed for great things.

If being nice to cabbies is gonna be my ticket into heaven then I think I can deal with that; there are worse ways to get there.