The taxi driver

Even the most homogenous species produce an eccentric outlier. This person either dies out due to inability to adapt to the environment or he leads the new evolutionary leap of the species opening new horizons.

I was sure I had an individual destined for the second option, rare though it is, sitting in the driver’s seat last Saturday night. Way past midnight - a time when all other means of public transport sleep in Thessaloniki - the lonely taxi driver was pulling long shifts. We, small group of not particularly regular night-wonderers, took a taxi to return home in the late hours.

The late 1980s taxi showed clear difficulty to drive properly, but this is not to be considered a problem in Greece of crisis. The interior of the taxi though, resembled a living room (not mine… but that of a more high-Tec person’s). The driver had installed apart from the traditional GPS tom tom, also a portable DVD player on the controls console. On the flat screen we could see a popular show of the Greek television… live. The driver had connected the DVD player with an antenna to connect to proper television.

His driving was a master performance of multitasking. Consulting his tom tom was driving while watching TV singing along to the songs performed at the show and watching pictures on his mobile phone and sending text messages.

Most men, as they claim, are incapable of multitasking, to the extent that they cannot walk and talk at the same time. Thus this taxi driver is definitely the eccentric outlier that will bring the species forward.

Now, I can feel this discontent about health and safety at work, regulations for safe driving and respect towards costumers. I thing my dear readers that you are missing the whole evolutionary point here. This man manages entertainment, safe driving and earning a living all at once. Can you beat that?

We got home safely, it was Christmas time and Baby Jesus owed us a couple of presents, you see. Sadly I did not note down his registration number to report him as I should. I thought I will let evolution do the job, of either killing himself and a set of passengers or developing superhuman powers and bringing the species forward.

Did I mention he was also smoking?