That gizmo on the dash
I live in San Francisco and use the Yellow Cab app on my iPhone to order rides. The other day I ordered, and when the Ford hybrid pulled up and I climbed into the back seat I saw the driver——brown-skinned, wearing a multi-colored headscarf—-had no GPS gizmo on the dashboard.
“Where to, Edward?”
The app knows my name.
I gave this foreign-born individual the address and we were off.
“You doin’ OK today, Edward?”
“How you doin’?”
“I ask you how you doin’. Why you ask me how I doin’?”
“Because you’re the one working.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know the route?”
“What do you think?”
“You don’t have one of those gizmos.”
“Waze?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Jewish.”
“What?”
“The Jews thought it up and sold it to Google. It tracks everybody.”
“Really?”
“Who needs it?”
“You don’t?”
“Not me. I’ve been driving 25 years.”
“You know the city like the back of your hand.”
“That’s right, Edward.”
“How’s business?”
“Shit.”
“Because of Uber?”
“Because of Uber.”
“Thanks to Waze the Russian and Ukrainian refugees can start driving cabs and Uber right away when they get here.”
“Not refugees. They’re all Jews. You know what?”
“I’ll know in a minute.”
“Jews run this country.”
“Where you from originally?”
“Pakistan.”
“Things have been rough over there.”
“Rough? Things are rough everywhere.”
“But you’re OK?”
“I know how to screw everybody. So that’s why I’m OK wherever I am.”
“Understood.”
“You know what happened yesterday?”
“I’ll know in a minute.”
“This woman in a nice dress paid me with one of those California low-income credit cards that belongs to her mother.”
“A Jewish woman?”
“Probably.”
“And you took it?”
“Why not? She screws her mother so why shouldn’t I?”
“Do you screw your mother?”
“No, but everybody else.”
“Everybody in Pakistan too?”
“Pakistan is a better country than America.”
“It must be. No Jews.”
“Here we are.”
The meter read $13.90. I usually tip 20 percent with my Discover card but now I handed him an Alexander Hamilton and four George Washingtons and told him to keep the change.
***
Edward Grossman has reported for the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Examiner and Times of Israel.