A hold-up, hearing problems

We were in a cab, and the driver, Ullah, was telling us a story. The story exploded out of his mouth in bursts.

I couldn’t catch all the details. These factors worked against me:

1) He had a heavy accent and spoke broken English
2) He spoke rapidly
3) The closed partition muffled his voice
4) Wind rushing through the open passenger seat window was noisy
5) I had a sexy Frenchman in the backseat with me, and he was, needless to say, distracting

But here’s the gist of the story: Ullah pulls up to the curb to let some guys out of the cab. After getting out, one of the men walks up to his window. Ullah sees him reaching for something and cranks up the window. The guy pulls out a gun. The window’s up. The guy holds the gun to the glass, pointed at Ullah’s head. Yells at at him. Wants cash.

Ullah floors it. Escapes unharmed. Cash intact.

The lesson? “I never put the car in park. You never put it in park,” he said. I buy it, all the way.

Photo: both the Frenchman and Ullah have dark eyes, like these.