Heres's the truth about me, plain and simple, and you are getting it only because I am drunk:

I root for the underdog. I was raised with manners and morals, my parents fell among wealthy people, but were bleeding liberals which meant that we lived well and we always had someone less fortunate under our roof and sharing our breakfast, lunch and dinner. My father faught a lot with our parish of the Catholic church over their appropriation of the funding for the poor, which my father felt was making the fast cats fatter and the poor poorer. Him, coming from the poorer and marrying the richer, he spoke out and I paid the price matriculating through the local Catholic school system.

My father is man of moral standing. My mother was wealthy. After they married and she changed into her wedding suit, my father rang the bell to pick her up and her grandfather came to the door and said to him, "It's a shame to waste this pure blood," referring to her 100% Irish lineage. My father, replied, "I understand, Sir, my family feels the same way," referring to his nearly pure German lineage and he collected my mother, his wife and started out on their own.

My father told me last week, that shortly after they married, my mother's never married aunt died and left my mother her brand new car. Being poor and carless, they took the car and soon, her mother was calling each day requesting to be chauffered around town. After a couple of weeks of my mother shifting her schedule to chauffeur her mother around town,, my father drove the car back to his in-laws and returned the car. They stood with mouths agape as he explained that the car "was too expensive" for them to afford. They protested, how could that be - it's completely paid for, they said. He explained, "the price of this car is too much for us to pay." And he pressed the keys in their hands, turned around and walked home to his new wife.

And with that, my father simply explained that sometimes the things in life that are free are the most expensive things of all.

Tonight I had a fabulous time with the girls. We had capriniha's and shot the shit. Joana and I shared a taxi home. After chatting and giggling, I rode the rest of the way with my taxi driver, chatting about America.

I asked the driver simple and easy questions, in between holding my breath to cure my hiccops, like where he was from, when he moved here, when he first saw snow, where he lived and where his family was.

These are questions I always ask cab drivers and they always reply excitedly with information - as if I am the first passenger to address them. I've lived here six years and if I am at all true to the name that Riot718 has given me, "'Lil Cab Bitch," then I've taken a lot of fucking cabs.

Tonight was no different. This foreigner and I had a benign conversation and you would have thought I had teabagged him. He reacted so intimately, profusely telling me how nice I was and how he wished me well, which threw me into this boomarang of wishing him even better, and when I excited the car, all I thought is what the hell are the other 7 million people in this city doing in that taxi? Pretending he's not even there??? Talking on their cellular's and ignoring him like a redheaded stepchild??

I stepped out of the car and waved goodbye to the young man, wishing him the best of luck, and I heard the voice of my father.

"It's too much, we can't afford it." And I realized passivity and lack of compassion is another price that I can never afford to pay.

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