M

Marriage

Marriage 1

Lover (eloping with loved one, to taxi driver): "How much is the fare?"

Driver: "That's all right. The lady's father settled all that."

Mechanics

Mechanics 1

WITH THE MECHANICS (Told by Jack Ryan)

A Driver : This is how the mechanics treat you.

I go into a garage and tell the mechanic "I'm in trouble. The engine spits." The mechanic tells you, "Well, spit back at it and get out of here!"

Mechanics 2
Told by Jack Ryan

I was a mechanic at one of the Parmelee Garages in Brooklyn. A fellow told me his radiator was leaking. No water.

So I went out with the wrecker and found him on Fifth Ave. and Seventh Street, Brooklyn. An L [elevated railway] pillar was sticking through the radiator. He had hit an L pillar and pushed his radiator back into the dash board.

It was leaking all right.

Mechanics 3
ANOTHER TIME (Told by Jack Ryan)

There was a driver called in to say something was the matter with his rear end. The car wouldn't move. When the mechanic got out there to see what was wrong with it he found some of the fellows on this line were playing a joke on this guy.

Whilst he was in the coffee pot they jacked up one wheel about a quarter of inch from the ground. He was sitting up in his seat wondering why in hell the car wouldn't go. Of course he couldn't see that little hand jack.

Meters

Meters 1

[In London] a meter which simply registered distance covered was tried on a hackney cab in 1847. Called 'The Patent Mile-Index', it consisted of a dial inside the body of the cab, visible to the passenger, showing the distance covered. The equivalent of an hour hand measured the miles, and the minute hand the fractions of a mile. There was another dial on the exterior of the cab which both the driver and passenger could consult at the beginning and end of the journey. The clock was connected to the rear axle by a specially calibrated gear train, which was fully enclosed to prevent its being tampered with. Neither this nor the Kilometric Register of 1858 was adopted, largely because the independent cabmen refused to allow their incomes to be regulated in this mechanical manner. In 1891 W.G. Bruhn of Hamburg began manufacture of a modern-type meter which was soon adopted on cabs in Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Stockholm. As might be expected, it did not meet with universal approval, and at Frankfurt-am-Main Bruhn was thrown into the river by angry cabbies.

Meters 2

 He was not very sober and had ridden for an hour or two in the taxicab when the chauffeur stopped.

"How much do I owe you, driver?" asked the passenger.

"Ten dollars and eighty cents, sir."

"Well, say, driver," was the reply, "just back up and keep going backward until you come to 30 cents, will you? It's all I've got."

Meters 3

 Man: "Well, cabbie, how much?"

Cabman: "Well, can you beat that? I had the meter going backwards and I owe you a dollar and a half."

Man: "Thanks! Hey, where's my tip?"

Meters 4

 Outside of a hotel in Manila, a Japanese tourist gets in a cab and tells the driver to drive him to the airport. On their way, a car zooms by and the passenger says, "Aaah Toyota. Made in Japan, very faaast!"

And then, another car zooms by and the passenger again says, "Aaah Nissan. Made in Japan, very faaast!"

No sooner has the Nissan gone out of sight when another car zooms by. Again the passenger says, "Aaah Mitsubishi. Made in Japan, very faaast!"

By this time the cabby is tired of his passenger's nationalistic pride. Upon arriving at the airport the cabby tells his passenger, "400 pesos please."

The passenger says, "400 pesos? It's not that far from the hotel!"

The cabby's reply: "Aaah, taxi meter, made in Japan, very faaast!!"

Meters 5

 Taxi meter: a device for showing how fast you aren't getting there.

Meters 6

 Existence is a taxi-ride through life, with the meter running whether we are going somewhere or just standing still. See also: Cobb, Irvin S. 1

Mitchell, Margaret (1900-1949)

Mitchell, Margaret 1

Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind, was struck down and fatally injured by an off-duty cab driver on August 11th, 1949.

Mitchell and her husband John Marsh had just arrived at a movie theatre on Atlanta's Peachtree street, a few blocks from their home. Mitchell parked across the street from the theatre and then helped Marsh, who was recovering from a heart attack, out of the car.

It was a dangerous place to cross the street, as a curve in the road made it impossible to see oncoming traffic from either direction. They were in the middle of the road when a car driven by 29-year-old Hugh Gravitt came around the curve at high speed, heading directly toward them. Gravitt realized the danger at the last moment and swerved left to avoid the couple, but at the same time Mitchell panicked and ran back into the path of Gravitt's car.

The braking car skidded sixty feet before hitting Mitchell, and dragged her a further seven feet after impact. She died in hospital five days later.

In November a jury convicted Gravitt of involuntary manslaughter. He had a long history of traffic violations as a cab driver, and on the day after his conviction he was involved in yet another accident. His license was revoked and he was sent to prison.

Sources:

Murphy's Laws

Murphy's Laws 1

Taxi Principle: Find out the cost before you get in.

Weaver's Law: When several reporters share a cab on an assignment, the reporter in the front seat pays for all.

Corollary (O'Doyle): No matter how many reporters share a cab, and no matter who pays, each puts the full fare on his own expense account.

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Revised November 11, 1998

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