Keeping Me On My Toes

So...I'm in the airport right now, ready to fly to visit my family and friends back east. My flight should've left 20 minutes ago, but we have yet to board, due to a delay. So I figured I'd blog. It seems I've broken out of my 1.5-year-long posting slump lately. Let's hope it lasts. To get to the airport, I took a cab. I call up the taxi company, order a cab, and try to figure out why the receptionist keeps calling me "honey." (It may have been a reference to how some of my friends in college called me Hunny, but that would be odd, since none of those friends work at the All-State Taxicab company.) So after a half day at work, I go home, gather and pack the last few things, and catch the cab waiting outside. The cabbie is nice and jovial and figures out without me telling him that I'm going to the airport. Nice. We set off at a nice clip, and almost hit another car, but that's ok, since my motto in driving is "a near miss is still a miss." (This being my second driving motto, my first being "The brake is on the left, stupid.") And then as we're going along, the car hiccups, like we ran over something, or the engine is coming down with the black lung. I raise my eyebrows. "What was that?" I ask. "Oh, the air conditioning isn't working." He rolls down the windows. Hmmm. Kind of confused here. "What was that?" I ask again. "I don't know." "You don't...?" "Yeah, I don't know. I am surprised too." This would've been an ok thing to say if he had said it in an adult-being-concerned voice. But no, he said it with a kind of wonderment, as if the car had just started dispensing free candy out of the broken air conditioning vents, and we were just reaping the benefits. Note to self: Design candy-dispensing air conditioning system for cars. Make millions and get a tummy ache. "Oh," I say, unable to properly respond to this. Then he offers some new information. "The check engine light is on....like always." Great. I am going to die. UPDATE: I did not die after all. I'll tell you my in-the-airport story soon, but I think we may be boarding now.