Sunday, December 23, 2012

SAFETY FIRST

 


Especially this time of the year.


Here's something to keep in mind to get home - and maybe safely.

 With the holidays upon us I would like to share a personal experience with my family & friends about drinking and driving. As you may know some of us have been known to have brushes with the authorities from time to time on the way home after a "social session" out with friends. Well three days ago I was out for an evening with friends and had several cocktails followed by some rather nice red wine. Feeling jolly I still had the sense to know that I may be slightly over the limit. That's when I did something that I've never done before - I took a cab home.
 
 Sure enough on the way home there was a police road block but since it was a cab they waved it past. I arrived home safely without incident. This was a real surprise as I had never driven a cab before, I don't know where I got it and now that it's in my garage I don't know what to do with it................any suggestions ?

Making the Rounds

I received this in an email from a client, and was reading it straight... so the twist at the end had me rolling.  I wish I knew where it came from, because the author certainly deserves recognition.

Remember Checker Cabs?


Cheers!

~Finntann

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very good advise!

Thersites said...

Go make a few bucks... ;0

Divine Theatre said...

I think you should give it back to the original owner. It's the right thing to do.
When I was a tiny little girl, I could never tell the difference between a Checker Cab and the Chicago PD vehicles. I could not, for the life of me, figure out why Checker Cab took my siblings and I to the orphanage! It was years before I realized it was a police car!

Drinking and Driving...those two words send a shudder down my spine. Mike has seen the aftermath of far too many of those rides.

xo

Andie

FreeThinke said...

Andie is absolutely right, of course, --- or would be if the story weren't a [really great] joke.

Anyway, thanks for presenting The First Great Guffaw of the Season. ;-)

I didn't get the joke till the end, so halfway through I was planning to tell you about my Aunt Alice [one of myriad aunts you may hear of from time to time -- like everything else aunts are not what they used to be, Alas!].

Aunt Alice was the highly successful principal of an elementary school for 42 years. A glamorous, charismatic figure with a tremendous sense of humor and a taste for adventure, she was the antithesis of what everyone once thought a school principal ought to be decades ago.

No scowl, no granny glasses perched on her nose, no shrill, vinegary voice, no graying hair pulled back in a bun, no shapeless ill-fitting frocks covering a dumpy figure for her. Aunt Alice bought all her working clothes either at Bonwit Teller or Bergdorff Goodman and always looked like a tear out of Vogue. How she did it on a paltry school principal's salary no one ever knew, but the woman's sense of thrift was world-class, and she managed to live like a queen in a fine three-storey house on next-to-nothing all of her adult life.

At any rate, Aunt Alice believed in safety without being the least bit stuffy, boring or didactic about it. For transportation she made a practice of buying used CHECKER CABS. Said each was built like a tank, and had wonderful engines made to last. Her biggest expense was in having her purchase repainted to look less conspicuous, as befitted a woman in her position.

A pillar of the Episcopal Church, and much loved and admired by the parents, whose children she influenced, and by her co-workers, Alice nevertheless had a wild streak she never quite lost, which made her the most entertaining member of the family by far. An accomplished thespian she was not above calling the authorities in a given situation and making her complaints or demands in a variety of ethnic accents -- Irish, Italian, German, Yiddish, Brooklynese -- you name it -- whatever she thought suited the occasion best.

To hear her tell it her theatrical performances via the telephone usually achieved the hoped for results in short order -- or so she said.

Whether strictly true or not, her tales were vastly entertaining and usually had everyone in stitches while we sat around the table after enjoying one of her excellent home-cooked meals.

Someday, I may tell you about her Christmas school assemblies which became legendary in three counties for their excellence and great use of imagination and dramatic flair.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about these vivid Christmas presentations was the predominance of Jewish children in her community. At least half the student body was Jewish.

Not only was there never the faintest hint of "trouble" about these affairs, Aunt Alice made them so alive and so much fun that Jewish children -- and their parents -- eagerly participated, and did all they could to make the annual event at least as successful as the one given the preceding year.

To make a long story short: My aunt was named Woman of the Year by B'Nai Brith as the person who made the most outstanding contribution to promoting good will and understanding in an ethnically diverse community.

It's the truth, so help me God. But it happened back in the 1940's -- a good ten years before the country lost its mind.

Have a Cool Yule, Y'all!

Cheers,

~ FreeThinke

Jersey McJones said...

That's really funny, Silver. It reminds me of the old "trick" of people who intentionally show up for their driver's license picture with a bad hangover. ;)

JMJ

Anonymous said...

Silverfiddle-

Where is the Annual Santa Picture?

Redneck Ron