The Worst Christmas Story volume 1

(Warning, Its kind of offensive)

In the 90s , office Christmas parties were tamer than previous decades. Demographics kicked in and boomers had to go home early to pay babysitters and retain marriages. Add to that, all the previously employee shitshows that ended up embarrassing major companies and their law firms, the bacchanalian corporate soirees were now a relic. A taxi drivers loss. Oh, and a recession was in full swing. Those that wanted the older version took their nostalgia to "VIP" rooms.

Still, a few remained.

Drunk out of his mind, an expensive suit rolled out of one of the big Christmas parties from the Bay Street financial district and flagged me down. He got around to telling me with his broad English accent, " I work on Bay Street as a broker". As we headed north to an upper middle class neighbourhood called "upper Rosedale", the conversation took a turn for the worse. He asked with a dead serious tone,

"So,..... are you Catholic or Protestant? "

I paused to calculate a response. Calmly and casually answering in spite of my disbelief at the question, I said .... "I'm an atheist".

"Ya, but you were brought up Protestant, I can tell. I'm from Manchester and we take this VERY seriously. Catholic passengers prefer Catholic drivers."

Part of me thought ,"HUH?" and another part of me raged. He comes to Canada and enters the top echelon of life in this country and carries with him a steaming sack of shit from the old country and he wants to take it out on a cab driver who could live 5 years on just his bonus alone!? Hoping to add some levity, I told him that most drivers I know are actually Muslim of varying degrees. "Yeaaa but I bet you WERE brought up Protestant weren't ya?!" He wasn't giving up.

Hearing him seethe with hatred through his slurred mumbling, I focused on ending this subject, now without levity. " I mean what I say when I say this. I reeeeeally don't give a shit about any of it. Really, I don't care! Nobody else here in (Canada) does either. We really, REALLY don't give a shit!"

Having done that job for a over half a decade by then, I wondered now if I would actually get paid. I never worried about getting paid from people scoring crack, gang members, ex cons..... but frat boys and their later incarnations could be a nightmare. By now I'm pulling up to his beautiful 5 bedroom house and hear,

" I think you and me should settle this outside.... "

I calmly said something about him being too drunk to fight. With nobody around and the rage I now felt, I thought of a couple of drivers I knew that would have been happy to get their frustrations out on his privileged doughy noggin. I took his money with no effort at making change. Pausing for a minute, I could see his regret for paying me. Now, without any leverage, he seemed to immediately think of an alternative. He opened the door and got out. Rather than slamming the door, which I expected, he opened the door wide and stood there unzipping his pants, attempting to wiz on the inside of my door. My car however was still in drive and the parade began. Me driving 2 - 3 km/hour down a stately upper middle class street in Toronto with pisstank Pete shuffling along beside my cab. I was able to stay just out of range, being the professional "protestant" driver I was. Looking like a loaded matador, his weird little Celtic pissdance unfolded. I was interested to see how far his bigotry and bladder would take him. I also got the bonus of watching him cover his expensive pants with his own Christmas cheer. Hopefully his neighbours got to watch as well.

I drove away between beautifully decorated houses covered in Christmas lights and thought, at least he didn't puke.

Ahhhh, Christmas memories.