A THUNDERSTORM

[July 6th, 2005] A thunderstorm! The light is getting that macabre quality, the leaves on the trees are flipping over, I smell ozone. In Sellwood, I slow the cab to a crawl, looking at a huge double rainbow. I reach New Seasons, where I'm given a bag of groceries to deliver. Afterwards, I sit in the cab and watch the lightning. Later I head back up 99E, trying to not drive off the road while looking at the blazing pink sky over the river.

Now it's dark out, and in Northeast I pick up a pretty girl who wants to go through the Taco Bell drive-thru and then back home. I ask if she's been watching the weather, and she says yes. We start driving up Sandy Boulevard, but something isn't quite right. "Oh wow, look, all the street lights are out," she says. "A pole somewhere must have taken a hit." I tell her I once drove past a pole just as the transformer was struck, sending fiery orange rain down my windows.

Now for more prosaic contemplation, that of the Taco Bell menu. I take people to drive-thrus all the time. My fare asks if I want anything, a gesture I always appreciate even though I almost never do want anything. I had never eaten Taco Bell before I started driving a cab. She orders while I think about how even if it's only three blocks away, people still must call us, because you can't walk up to the window. I wonder how much gas is burned just in Taco Bell drive-thrus, all over the United States. Then there's the gas produced from Taco Bell drive-thrus....