Saturday night, I went to Playing With Fire, the free Blues concert on the riverfront. I had never been to Lewis & Clark Landing before, and had only a vague idea of where it was. Namely, somewhere behind the Qwest Center. So I took the closest free parking spot I could find, and began walking. And walking. Eight blocks and two pints of sweat later, I could see the stage lights, which was good because I was sweating through my shirt.
Problem: the lights were a rather large embankment and what appeared to be a fence. I had two choices: follow the sidewalk, which wound down the hill in the opposite direction, eventually getting you there -- or run down the grass and make a shortcut. I did the only sensible thing and ran down the hill. Of course I did. And at the bottom of the hill, I jumped a rather tall fence.
Problem: on the other side of the first fence was a set of railroad tracks, and on the other side of that, a taller fence. My running for a shortcut had made my journey twice as long. Nice.
Eventually, I made it inside the park, and the heat, humidity and gratuitous amounts of beer quickly took their toll. Three 16 ounce Coors Lights in an hour of 90 degree heat were followed by a good portion of a pitcher of something unknown at the Dubliner. When 1 am came, I was in no shape to drive, so I hopped into a cab with three ladies and headed to midtown. Of course I did.
One of the ladies had a cabbie's personal cell phone programmed into her phone, so we were able to bypass the switchboard and get a direct line to his car -- cutting our likely one hour wait down to under 10 minutes. Talk about service!
Inside the cab, our driver asked us if we could believe that Starbucks was closing five Omaha stores. I replied that no, I could not believe this. Wasn't there a Starbucks on every corner anyway? Who would miss five stores?
Turns out there are 11, so five is almost half. This is a problem for our Cabbie, who needs the Starbucks to get through his shift. I told him that the economy sucks right now, and people must not be buying as many five dollar caffe lattes. He disagreed.
Cabbie: "Starbucks is a giant company, you can't tell me they're losing money. Its impossible for a company that big to lose money."
Me: "Wha..."
Cabbie: "Years ago I worked for [company name redacted] and the exact same thing happened. None of us could figure out how we were losing money. Turns out one of the financial officers was stealing money. That's what will come out of this Starbucks thing in a few years, you watch: they'll announce somebody was stealing money."
Me: (Speechless)
Cabbie: "He'll go to prison for 36 months, and when he gets out he'll still have the money. That's how it always happens. Every time. Mark my words!"
Me: "I suppose its possible."
Cabbie: "No, its fact. I promise you it is."
Ah, Cabbie Logic is the greatest. You bet.
You know what else is great? Home Team Pizza. You know what isn't so great? Obnoxious psychology students. You know what really sucks? Obnoxious psychology students with a sense of entitlement and a heinously groomed beard. Socrates you are not. Shut up, Dee-Bag. You bet.
