This all started when I caught a cab in New York.
Normally, I'd ride the MTA, as it's both cheaper and more responsible than a single-passenger vehicle, but I needed to go crosstown. It'd take at least one transfer to manage, and I was a little short on time getting to the meeting. Or so I thought.
My first clue that something weird was going on was the guy in the passenger seat. Cabs don't carry passengers up front. Most cabbies use that seat for their clipboard, other paperwork, snacks, whatever clutter they need to get through the day. This cab, there's a guy in the passenger seat.
He and the driver both looked kind of Armenian or something, dark hair, dark eyes, profile somewhere between Roman and Balkan, and both were wearing sweaters and scarves their relatives probably knitted for them. The driver was looking up in the mirror at me, as you'd expect, but this other guy was turned part way round in his seat, and looking straight at me between the seats and through the Lexan partition. That clear barrier will stop a large caliber handgun round at point-blank range. Welcome to New York.
As the cab pulled away from the curb, I slotted my card in the reader on the back of the seat. There's no way to pass currency to the driver. Either you have a card or you don't do cabs. When the screen flicked to Authorized, lights flicked on in the roof, started strobing, and a recorded fanfare played.
"Welcome to Cash Cab!" the driver sang out. He tapped a GoPro attached to the mirror. "There's another one on the street side. Now that you've had them pointed out, try to stop looking directly at them!" He laughed, then went on, "Like trying not to think of a zebra, right?"
I shrugged. "I can think of a zebra and no zebra at the same time," I told him. "I'm clever like that."
He laughed again. "You know how this works?" He didn't wait for more than half a beat before explaining. "You slotted your card like you normally would to authorize the trip, but you're not gonna pay anything. If you can answer my questions, you get cash deposited to your account. You in?"
What the hell. It was a free cab ride, and it wouldn't delay me much. I'd seen videos of these online. They never ran more than five minutes."I'm in," I told him.
"Okay," he said. "For $100, what is the capital of Venezuela?"
This one's easy. "Caracas," I said. The company I worked for had an office there. The roof lights strobed green. Passenger seat guy said nothing, but tapped his phone and nodded. Maybe he was some kind of auditor or something.
"For $200," the driver said, pulling my attention back to him, "what is the name of the park built by Tiger Balm?"
This was uncannily in my wheelhouse. "Haw Par Villa," I said. More green lights. I went there a couple years ago to photograph the place, and to be able to say I'd been there. It was one of the most famous Weird Attractions in the world.
Another nod and tap from passenger seat guy. The driver had his eyes on the road, which, in Manhattan, yeah, he'd better.
"For $300," he said, "what is the cube root of 328,509?"
I snickered. This was a joke Americans learn in high school. "Sixty-nine," I said, and we all chorused, "Nice."
Huh. That was the first time passenger seat guy said anything.
"You've hit all three questions," said the driver, "and we're going to be at your stop soon. For all the money, double or nothing, you want to play?"
I figured, if I blew the last question, I wasn't actually out anything, and this had been fun so far. What the hell. "Yeah," i said, "double or nothing. Hit me."
He smirked. "What T20 team was banned for two seasons for gambling?"
The question sounded like a trick one for Americans at first, as the obvious thing the average American is going to blurt out is the Chicago White Sox, who became known as the Black Sox. But that's the wrong league, the wrong sport even. T20 is an Indian cricket league. And I've studied cricket so I could keep up with the sports metaphors and discussions at work. I have a lot of Desi colleagues.
This was like the questions had been picked for me specifically. What the hell was going on?
"The Chennai Super Kings," I said. The lights went wild, and another recorded fanfare played.
"You've just won $1200 on Cash Cab!" the driver exulted. Then he went silent, kind of blank actually, and just drove for a minute.
Passenger seat guy glanced at the driver, then turned his attention back to me. Damn, he had intense eyes. Seriously hot. I wondered if I could get his number so we could meet later in a non professional environment.
'You've got ethical problems with your life," he said, just dropping that bomb in a matter of fact tone like he's telling me I have lunch stains on my shirt. Before I can reply, and I mean, I'm taken aback by the turn this has gone screaming around, he goes on.
"I can help you with that, but you have to be specific about the thing that you think would fix it." He went all Very Serious. "And the thing you wish for has to affect only you."
Right. Tell me you're a genie without saying that you're a genie. This has got to be some kind of setup for an extended gag. I've played along so far. What the hell, I'm twelve hundred bucks up already.
And he's right. I do have ethical problems with my life.
I'm a naturist, someone who, for ethical and moral reasons, believes it's better to live without clothing, in a more natural state. I took the job in Manhattan because it paid intensely well. I could afford to leave the city every Friday night, check into one of the nudist resorts in the area, and come back Sunday night. But living as a naturist 36 hours at a time was not enough, and what I was having to do to pay for it was too much. Spending the week chafing in a business suit in Manhattan was the diametric opposite of what I wanted out of life.
Oh, and I don't like the American term nudist. It's negative. It focuses on being without clothing, on disliking being dressed. The European term naturist has always worked better for me. It focuses on living in a natural state, and being closer to the natural world. Americans insist on calling it nudism, while Europeans prefer naturism, and there's an entire world of difference in outlook and philosophy between those two words for what is functionally the same thing, living without clothing.
So when this guy who'd strongly implied he's a genie granted me a wish, I decided to just drop a bomb of my own and see what happened. I mean, really, there was no way, this had to be the setup for a joke, right?
"I want to legally be nude for the rest of my life."
"Ba da bing," he said, and finger-gunned my phone. It dinged. "Get that," he went on, "it's a job offer. You're gonna want to take it, as your old job is going to let you go when you get there today."
Wait, what? Oh, crap. That would be one reason for sending me offsite for a meeting on short notice, yeah. By this point, I'd stopped questioning how these two knew so much about me. There was too much else going on.
I checked my phone. The job offer was massive - data librarian at the top of the industry salary range, at a rising manufacturing company setting up a new headquarters and starting several new product lines, all with heavy backing from Hammersmith and Farrell. Wait. I knew that name.
I looked up. Passenger seat guy was gone. We didn't stop, the door didn't open, but he wasn't fucking there.
"What about the other guy?" I asked the driver, who had snapped out of whatever trance he'd been in.
"What other guy?" he asked, seeming genuinely confused. The cab pulled up to the curb. "Here's your winnings, and thanks for playing Cash Cab!"
The card reader beeped, telling me my winnings had been transferred to my account. I stepped out at my destination, and went back to my phone as the cab pulled away.
The job was in Cornwall. In the fucking UK. The offer included a shipping allowance, relocation travel expenses, a work visa, and sponsoring for immigration. There was a button to accept.
Hammersmith and Farrell owned a series of naturist resorts down the European coastline, and apparently across the UK as well. I'd stayed at their Bayonne resort for two weeks a couple years ago. Cost a fortune for the flight to France and two weeks' accommodations, but it was worth every last penny. Best time I'd ever had at a naturist resort, and half of it was the attitude.
American nudists are suspicious of all unaccompanied males, sadly with good reason. Mainstream American culture produces men who perv on nude women. Meanwhile, the male body is held by Americans to be wrong and shameful, and men are required to keep their bodies covered so as not to offend anyone with their presence. The American attitude of, a nude woman is a photo opportunity, a nude man is a call to the police, points out how Americans cannot separate sex from the natural state of the human body. So yeah, I was okay at the local resorts where they knew me, but anywhere else, a single man in his early 30s gets looked at sideways when he arrives. The Bayonne resort did not do that.
UK law allowing social nudity had been in place since 2016, and people there were getting more assertive about their right to exist in a natural state. The UK naturists I'd met at the Bayonne resort, and stayed in contact with online, all said that the atmosphere was a lot more relaxed, especially at the seaside. They were also more body positive than Americans, with our youth culture obsession, and more accepting of men practicing the lifestyle.
I held off for a moment. I went in for the alleged meeting. They took my laptop on arrival. Sorry, I was told, the project was cancelled. We'll pay for your cab ride back to the office, but your desk is being cleared right now. That's the way it goes in IT.
