The Taxi Wager

February 16, 2009

In high school, my calculus teacher, in explaining the concept of “limits,” used to ask if it made any difference if you walked or ran in the rain. Then, to push it to the limit, he would ask if it made any difference if you walked or ran at the bottom of a swimming pool.

There seem to be about as many dogs in Tel Aviv as there are cell phones, a lot. While some owners are conscientious about dog poop, others are not. As I got off of the train today at Bet Yohoshua, I recognized the familiar odor coming from my shoe. I picked up a stick, but there are a lot of nooks and crannies in the soles of my shoes, so when I got to Sheatufim, I headed to the restroom and tried paper towels soaked in water. For the rest of the day, however, the odor seemed to be there.

The sky turned dark gray as I headed back to the train station at the end of the day. A downpour started just after I had purchased a dark chocolate Magnum ice cream bar. I think that buying ice cream bars is a good way to learn numbers. Even though the distance is only a few feet from the shelter to the train, I was covered with rain. When I emerged from the station at Tel Aviv University, it was still raining heavily, so I climbed into a cab. The walk from our apartment to the station is only about 20 minutes through lovely Hayarkon Park, so I figured a taxi fare was worth it to avoid more of this cold rain.

Confidently I said, “shesh esrey Bavli, bevakasha.” (16 Bavli, please), as I climbed into a taxi. The driver turned and said “Bavli” and something about 20 shekels or the meter. It seems that taxi fares are something like the lottery. You bet on the meter or a fixed fare, whenever you get into the cab. Quickly calculating the short walk through the park, I was confident that there was no way it would get to 20 shekels to get me home from the 9.20 on the meter, so I chose the meter.

As we pulled out of the station onto congested Israel Rokach Blvd., I was still confident, even though surprised by how quickly the idle time registered on the meter. Just then, however, I realized that the taxi was not going to be able to go through the park and over the quaint footbridge across the Hayarkon River. We would have to drive up to Namir, a traffic nightmare in its own right and then work our way back to Bavli. The rain continued as we crawled along and I started to think about hopping out if the meter hit 19.90 shekels, just so that I could say that I had won. The meter hit 18 as we waited through three light changes at Namir (and some angry taxi drivers who had been cut off by my driver). Finally on Namir, I assumed he would go down to Harav Herzog and turn left, but instead he exited Namir on the cloverleaf that took us very slowly and several shekels worth under the Namir bridge to Harav Kasovsky that runs along the park. As we passed Sanhedrin, the block before Bavli, the driver signaled about turning right, but I knew that Bavli came right to the park so I just waved him ahead to the next street. It was only then that I remembered that Bavli was one way for the three of the four blocks between our apartment and the park. Even though it was still raining, it was unclear to me exactly how we would get back to anywhere near #16 without starting at the train station again, so I just said, “b’seder” (o.k.) and hopped out of the cab for a mere 27.70 shekels. I got drenched during the four block walk to the apartment. My calculus teacher would probably ask if I would have gotten more drenched just walking or running directly from the station without bothering to take the taxi wager.

I was happy to see, however, that the puddles had washed the dog poop from even the smallest cracks on my soles.