Last Fare
Dear Diary:
I was running late to work one morning so I decided to take a taxi, a rare luxury. I settled in, and the driver and I exchanged pleasantries. He said I was his last fare.
I said he must be looking forward to going home and getting some rest.
“You don’t understand,” he said, keeping his eyes straight ahead on the road. “You are not my last fare for the day. You are my last fare forever.”
He explained that he was retiring that day after 45 years of driving a cab.
As he took me to East Harlem from the Upper West Side, he reminisced about his career and the many famous passengers he had picked up.
When we got to my destination, I told him I was honored to have been his last fare and wished him luck. He smiled, turned off his meter and drove away.
— Diane LaGamma
Empty Seat
Dear Diary:
I was on the subway one day, and the train wasn’t very crowded. I happily found a seat, and there was an empty one next to me.
At the next stop, a woman who was maybe in her 60s got on and saw the empty seat. She walked over, turned and lowered herself down carefully — right onto my lap.
Before I could say anything, she got up and turned around as carefully as she had sat down.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I seem to have miscalculated.”
— Nancy I. Klein
The Verdict
Dear Diary:
In 1953, at the age of 20, I fulfilled a longtime dream and moved to New York City from Ohio.
Eager to participate in the life of my new city, I signed up to be included as a prospective juror.
Several years later, I was called to serve on a civil court jury. I was the only woman.
The case was a lawsuit seeking damages against Horn & Hardart, which operated the Automat cafeterias. It had been brought by a woman who claimed to have found a worm in her salad. As evidence, she had preserved the worm in her freezer for well over a year and had brought it to court.
The judge, a tall, dark-haired, middle-aged man with a booming voice, had a real New York accent that was impressive to this former Ohio resident who was bent on obliterating her own Midwestern accent.
After the plaintiff had testified to her extreme distress at discovering the worm, the judge ordered that “Exhibit A, to wit, da woim,” be circulated among the jurors.
Then he paused and, with a smile and nod at me, said: “Except for da lady.”
I tried to protest by shaking my head, but the clerk carrying the worm passed me by.
Back in the jury room, no one doubted that the plaintiff had indeed found a worm in her salad, but we were unimpressed by the suffering she claimed it had caused her.
Had she not willingly, perhaps eagerly, extracted, wrapped in napkins, transported home and preserved in her freezer the offending worm?
After deliberating, we unanimously found in favor of the plaintiff, enabling her to collect her legal costs from Horn & Hardart, but we awarded her damages of only $1.
— Alix Kates Shulman
Answering
Dear Diary:
This happened years ago, when I still relied on an answering service that employed actual human beings to answer calls and take messages.
I was at a McDonald’s near my apartment, at the intersection of West 71st Street and Broadway. As usual, there was a line. The man in front of me at the counter was taking forever to order.
“What’s taking so long?” I muttered under my breath through clenched teeth at a barely audible volume. “C’mon already.”
The man turned around.
“Hey, you’re Kevin Goldman,” he said. “I recognize your voice. I’m with your answering service, and we speak when you get your messages.”
His food came, and, somewhat awkwardly, I stepped up to order. I bought an answering machine soon after that.
— Kevin Goldman
Misty Day
Dear Diary:
On a rainy, misty day a few years ago, I flagged down a cab on 10th Avenue. It veered to the curb and skidded to a halt. I climbed in.
The driver lurched out into traffic as his wipers slapped away the rain hitting the windshield.
I began to ease back in my seat but sat back up when I noticed that the driver had a newspaper spread across the steering wheel and was reading it.
Startled, I leaned forward.
“Do you mind watching the road?” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, without looking up. “I’ve seen it before.”
— Douglas Pennington
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