My CRaZy Blizzard CR-Z ride (An Allegorical Tale of CRZ Woe)Follow

Ok, so I was thinking about buying a mop one morning. I just had a cataclysmic spill in my kitchen and needed to clean it up. I needed to go to the store so I called the Blizzard Taxi service. They sent over one of their new Honda CRZs. From far off it looks ok I guess, but as I got closer I noticed a lot paint was missing and there were a bunch of anarchy stickers on the back window and the engine seemed to be missing badly, sputtering and smoking. “Are you sure this vehicle is safe?”, I asked the driver. “Very much likely to be so, probably. If not, we fix along the way!” he replied. That was not so reassuring, but I needed to go buy that mop, so I got in the back.

I notice there is a partition between the driver and me, with only a small opening for us to have any contact. I can make out that he is wearing a T-shirt that has a picture of a care bear being stabbed and his name is Ben Pardaa. “Call me Ol Ben” he says. Ben then tells me I owe $14.99 before we even get started. “Seems kinda odd to pay first” I said. “Yes, yes”, Ol Ben replied, “Very profitable in case you’re suddenly thrown from vehicle and fall to your death to have money up front!” I reluctantly pay up, I am in real need of that mop after all, and we’re off.

I immediately notice that the radio is blaring country music and I ask him to please change the channel, or let me customize my trip by picking songs from my mp3’s playlist. Ol Ben tells me he can only pick up three stations every 15 miles and I can change it to country/pop, pop/country, or an all Taylor Swift Kenney Chesney channel and no outside contribution to the trip’s musical harmony is allowed. Needless to say, I just tried to ignore the radio from then on, since it really didn’t have a huge affect on my trip anyways. I just watched Avatar on like seven dvd players instead, even though I didn’t really like Avatar. “Would it not have been better to spend the money on maintenance than seven dvd players?” I asked. “Avatar is so pretty, I am watching it while driving currently at this time now also.” Ol Ben replied. “Should you be doing that?” “Is fine, Is fine, car mostly drives itself, sometimes I press a button and it even makes things worse. So I do as little as possible! Don’t write that I said that on comment card please.” “Do your bosses read the comment cards?” I asked. “No, but I show them to other customers for laughs though, so please be nice.”

The trip progressed. We seemed to randomly speed up and slow down for no apparent reason. And it seemed like every mile or so, everything would get kinda blurry and hard to see and animals by the roadside would appear and disappear while I was looking at them! “Yes, yes this is due to the carbon monoxide leak” Ol Ben calmly told me. “Uh, there’s a carbon monoxide leak? Shouldn’t that have been fixed when the car was built and tested?” To this Ol Ben did not reply.

Suddenly Ben Pardaa says we have to stop and pick up another fare. Hmmm, that’s odd I thought. I mean I already paid my fare, but again, need that damn mop. We pull over and this really short drunk Scottish man with his huge smelly dog gets into the taxi. Without even introducing himself he steals my drink and chips (I had bought them from the Blizzard Taxi company mini bar for $1000) and his dog slobbers all over my shoes. I ask him to please refrain from taking my stuff, but he only burps and rattles off some incomprehensible mumblings about my ethnicity not deserving chips or drinks, which was odd, since I’m also Scottish! Luckily, the cab comes to a stop and the short Scot gets out and we move off again.
A few moments later the rear driver side tire exploded. “This is not good, would be embarrassing and costly to repair taxi tire.” Ol Ben tells me as he slams on the brakes and screeches to a halt. “I had better remove the other three tires to make ride even again” he says. “Wouldn’t it be a lot better to just put on the spare tire” I asked. “Would be if we had one, but spare tires require much anticipation and forethought. I mean did you think to bring a platypus with you today?” “Well, I can’t see how not having a platypus with me is anything like your company not providing spare tires.” “Is complicated to run a business little customer person. Please let professionals handle business aspects of commerce and finance” he told me as he was removing the other three tires. I think to myself, that $1000 I spent on chips and a drink would buy a lot of spare tires, but the carbon monoxide leak is making me woozy. I forget to mention it.

We start down the road again, the ride is terrible as we struggle along on four rims. Still, I need that mop so bad! I had a cataclysmic spill in my kitchen and I gotta clean it up. In just a few moments Ol Ben tells me we have to pick up someone else! At this rate I’m never getting that mop I think to myself. But this time a beautiful blonde woman gets into the back with me and I am thinking jackpot! But she only gets in, waves at me and then leaves right away! I never saw her again for the rest of my life. It was sad, and kinda pointless.

Then Ol Ben looks through the tiny little gap, which seems to be shrinking as we go along somehow, in the partition between us and says “Aren’t you glad you had the chance to see her even though you will never see her ever ever again? Next pick up will be, how you say, worse.” “Next pick up?” I say. “Come on man, maybe you guys at Blizzard Taxi should sell your cabs and buy buses!”

Ol Ben wasn’t joking, the next time we stopped three Brazilian hooligans jumped into the cab all waving Brazilian flags and telling me I sucked because I was not Brazilian. Well, I’m not 100% sure that’s what they were saying, my usually fluent Portuguese was a little off, most likely due to the carbon monoxide leak and numerous glancing blows to the head I suffered at the hands of the Portuguese-speaking hooligans. They kept telling me they hated my flag, even though I wasn’t even carrying one! I tried to tell Ol Ben about the attacks, but he was still watching two or three Avatars and was also doing some sort of interview for Taxi Drivers monthly and did not reply to me. Through the shouts and screams of the hooligans I could make out Ol Ben answering the interviewer’s question (it was on speaker phone). “What’s the greatest challenge about being so wonderfully great and driving such a great taxi for such a great company as Blizzard Taxi?” I wonder if Blizzard Taxi owns that magazine I thought as I parried an Brazilian roundhouse. Luckily, my Scottish street fighting skills, learned in the back alleys of Edinburgh, enabled me to defeat the Brazilians and they disappeared into the Mists.

As we pulled into the store’s parking lot I noticed that is was dark outside and the store was closed. We had left at 8am and trip only took 30 minutes, so how in the world was it dark? Ol Ben told me that the taxi was also a time machine and that we traveled back to the night before we had left! Turns out, I never even had that cataclysmic spill and that I didn’t need the mop after all. It was all just a pointless nightmare.


Edited, Sep 20th 2012 8:23am by imrahil74

tl;dr

Still a better love story than Twilight. Still a better ending than Mass Effect 3.

Would read again, but not right now.

Cool story bro, but it needs more dragons.



Edited, Sep 20th 2012 12:30pm by ACLinjury

Cool Grover sig line. Wubba Wubba Wubba is a monster song!