Oktoberfest Ended in Crazy Cab Ride

On Saturday we decided to go to Oktoberfest with our friends Mike and AJ. Andy and I have never gone in the four years we have lived here, so we decided to check it out. The bad thing is that it’s in Tempe, so that is about a 35 minute drive from our house. We get down to Tempe about 8pm and it was just chaos as there were people everywhere. Part of that was because the ASU football game just ended and that is near where the fest was located. We stood in line to have our I.D.’s checked and then we proceeded to stand in another line to purchase tickets so that we could buy food and drinks. Soon after we bought tickets we were faced with the longest lines I have ever seen to get a beer. These lines were so long that it was taking an hour just to get a beer and the only plus was that the band was good to listen to. If we didn’t already purchase a ton of tickets we would have just left, but instead we stayed. We knew our friend Tom had already been there for a few hours and we knew there was no way in the world he would stand in these lines, so we called him to see what the deal is. He guided us to a beer stand where the line was no more than five minutes. This was like hitting the jackpot until we realized why the beer stand was empty. The downfall to this was that it was in the Polka tent where the music was just blaring polka and you had your die hard Oktoberfest patrons decked out in German garb. It was kind of entertaining, but it definitely got old after a while.

Midnight approached and the festival was closing, so we did the mature thing and decided to catch an expensive cab ride home instead of driving ourselves home. Well, let’s just say that I could have gotten us home safer than this cabbie. AJ talked this cab driver into a deal to get us all the way north and then I realized why we got such a deal, nobody else would take a ride from this nut job. First, this woman was completely cross-eyed and couldn’t see straight, but we all got in the cab anyway. Second, this woman is from Jamaica and has been living here for 24 years, but for some reason can’t speak or understand the language. Third, the nut job was driving 50mph in a residential neighborhood and blew through two stop signs. Fourth, she also blew through two stop lights. Fifth, she kept turning around trying to talk to us in the back seat which made the cab go all over the road. I was at the point of just hoping and praying that we would all get home safe and sound. That was absolutely the scariest cab ride I have ever had in my entire life, and the festival was not even worth the near death experience the cabbie gave us.