Wait… is that blood?

Back in New York my parents and I piled into a cab one morning on our way to brunch. We were zooming past Saks and laughing at tourists who looked exhausted, grumpy and were clearly making the error of walking absolutely everywhere… when I idly perused the inside of the cab to my left where I was smooshed up next to the window…

and I saw this:

Wait… I’m sorry…

*awkward little laugh*

Is that blood?

I instantly broke out into a cold sweat, started getting flashes of ‘The Bone Collector.’

I mean… This is New York! And while it is a twinkly and romantic place and I am a huge fan of pop culture NYC based favourites such as Friends, You’ve got mail, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Sesame Street… There was still a 70% chance we were trapped in the cab of a serial killer.

I was so inside my own head about this I started noticing other weird little, disturbing things about the cab we were in. What looked like hand prints on the plastic divider screen… scratches on the leather… locks that sunk into the door so you couldn’t yank them up to exit the vehicle in a pinch…

I wasn’t wearing stilettos – so the only thing I could defend my parents with were the artsy chopsticks in Motherships fabulous french twist up do.

Obviously I started having a full blown panic attack mushed right next to my parents. I didn’t have a paper bag to breath into so this left me no option other than cupping my hands together to simulate one. Unfortunately instead of helping that just made me smudge my lipstick.

However this was a possible life and death situation, so panic was entirely valid.

I‘m not sure if it was the hyperventilating or the hand cupping or the fact I was clearly mentally assuming a fighting stance but obviously the driver decided not to murder us.

I am not, dear reader, currently blogging from the depths of his dungeon.

I was delighted to find that, when we pulled over to the curb at our destination, no chloroform was involved.

Eddie Izzard once said that the antidote to fear is boredom. That you can’t be both at the same time. Which is excellent advice I am sure you will agree.

So – to assume alpha status over our would be assassin I calmly got out of the cab, helped my parents out one by one and yawned loudly and exaggeratedly with my mouth smudged with lipstick as I paid him.

He just looked at me quizzically and got back in the cab.

Obviously the moral of the story is – kidnappers can’t handle crazy.

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