SFO Taxi Overflow Lot #2

The subterranean lots that hold the taxis and drivers waiting to pick people up at SFO are filled with the low hums and shrill whistles of machines whose purposes are unknown to us. Probably air-conditioners, generators, transformers, we sit in the field of white noise created by their chorus, waiting. Working the airport is uncertain business. The wait, from the moment we drive in, to the slow procession of cabs through three lots, to our release topside at the terminals where we load, can take up to a few hours. The fares go everywhere, with higher paying rides to outlying communities in the Bay Area being less frequent than traffic-riddled jaunts into the city. A night spent picking people up at SFO can pay out big or pay out nothing. Through all of this waiting, all of this hoping, the one certainty is that the coffee here is absolutely wretched.

Down a ramp next to Lot #2, the only lot above which we can see open sky, is a catering truck of the variety commonly seen at large construction sites. Run by a pleasant Vietnamese family, it serves American fast-food staples, Asian rice dishes on rectangular Styrofoam plates, and has a black spigot which pours the much I use to keep myself awake. It tastes like chemicals: potassium nitrate; titanium dioxide; bleach; Micronesian speed. (I've never actually tried these things, other than the latter, but my imagination leads me to believe they have a similar effect on the palate.)

And still, I drink it. It is an intermittent feature of my nights at the airport. Its bitter taste, resistant to even a complete saturation of sugar, is a taste linked in memory to the sights of old Russian men playing cards on trunk-tops of taxis, waiting -- to the sounds of men yelling at each other in Arabic and laughing -- to the sounds of friends' voices on the phone when I call while I wait -- and cat naps in cars -- and hours of taking notes on it all -- and eventually to the sound of the dispatcher's shrill whistle which releases us from the lots, these pens, on to pick up some stranger and some unknown destination. I can never forget that taste.

The Flowchart

At the beginning of my shift, I pick up a cab at the yard. I talk to the cashier, say hello to the mechanics and other drivers, eventually finding my taxi in the far corner of the lot. Even if it's a car I drive regularly, any number of things could have happened to it since I drove it last. For safety, you inspect the vehicle.

When I was a new driver, I wasted time checking to see if everything in the car worked -- not realizing what was important, not having a streamlined process for the beginning of my shift. Now I have that understanding, and I've turned my process into an easy-to-follow flowchart which should be handy to the new driver and beneficial to the old driver (in case of Alzheimer's).

You're welcome.