A Taxi Driver in the Wrong Job?

I wish I could do justice to the misery I inadvertently inflicted on a taxi driver this morning. I hailed his cab on Waterloo Bridge Road and asked to be taken to the House of Lords, a short drive away. It was, he informed me, his first job of the day and, yes, he thought he knew where Black Rod’s Entrance was.

We came across Lambeth Bridge and I could hear him muttering to himself about the traffic and the bicycles and the pedestrians. In all truth, I thought the traffic rather light and, although there were a lot of bicycles and pedestrians, they did not seem to me to be causing any undue problems. I began to wonder about my driver.

The real trouble started, however, when we reached our destination. As it hove into view, he pulled in to the kerb and I reached forward for the door handle, only to be thrown back into my seat as he made a U-turn to set me down on the correct side of the street. This was unnecessary but charming, I thought, but the problem was that there were two other taxis also disgorging passengers. My driver took this as a personal affront. He muttered and grumbled, then tried to pull in in front of the second taxi. Once again, I reached for the door handle; once again I was thrown back as the taxi lurched forward. There had been a bus, he announced, rather accusingly, then made another U-turn. By this time I was beginning to have visions of a nightmarish Ground-Hog day when I was never allowed to alight from the taxi.

This was when he turned around to look at me and to say, accusingly, that I had made him bring me to somewhere where there was nowhere to set down and it was the first job and…… I requested, with as much calm as I could muster, that he set me down there, since I could easily cross the road. For a third time I reached for the door handle, only for that lurch to be repeated. It transpired that, once again, we had been interfering with a bus. Eventually I alighted, paid him and left, but as I did so I could hear him muttering about nowhere to set down and the first job of the day. Somehow, I suspect he might be in the wrong job.