Lesson learned

When the rain starts falling horizontally, I start looking for a taxi.

Not that I usually find one before I get to the bus stop, soaking wet. It’s like all the cabs in this town disappear as soon as it starts raining.

And if I have learned one thing in my year and a half in Hong Kong, it is that all bets are off when it comes to getting taxis in the rain. The cab belongs to the person who gets in first. Nice guys get wet.

The Australian woman who called me a fucking bitch tonight as I got into the cab outside the office obviously has yet to learn this lesson.

She left the building soon after I did. We stood several feet apart in the shelter of the highway overpass, umbrellas wobbling in the strong wind. Within minutes, I had managed to flag down a driver. And when he stopped, she stepped out from behind the pillar, obviously expecting she would be the one to get in.

But I got in first, and she started screaming at me. I slammed the door, shrugged at the driver, and gave him my address. She stood there fuming.

It doesn’t matter that, technically speaking, she was farther up the road. I was there first. I flagged him down as soon as I saw the “for hire” light. He stopped in front of me. It was my cab.

Get your own, bitch.