You're a pretty good driver, for a girl.

[June 14th, 2006] "You're a pretty good driver, for a girl."

I had picked these guys up at the Aladdin, where Johnny Winter was playing; they had left early for some reason. "Couldn't get us out of there fast enough. Take us to the Ship Ahoy, it's at 29th and Gladstone."

"Yep, I know it," said I, and started accelerating in order to hasten the departure of their, ahh, rather fragrant personages. Beer was the most pleasant of the odors they exudes. I drove a bit faster than I usually do, windows down, and it was this aggressiveness that seems to have earned their approbation.

"I'm a good driver for a girl, is that what he just said?" I ask.

I am thinking of what my superintendent told me when I was hired (this being several superintendents ago, alas). He said he thought the women were safer out on the street because statistically, we drive better than the men. But also, in a robbery situation we don't feel the need to swing our dicks and be confrontational; we'll give the robber the money, the cab, and walk away in one piece. He said in 25 years in the business he had never heard of a women being targeted for her gender, like a sexual assault.

"You can't say anything these days without offending somebody," says my passenger.

"Oh, trust me, I'm not at all offended. Merely entertained." He looks puzzled, but maybe that's just all the beer.