That Foot Tastes Good

“He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his soul:

But he that hath no guard on his speech shall meet evils”

Proverbs 13:2

Anyone who knows me well will tell you how often I speak out of turn, or say something obnoxious. My brother-in-law Richard will tell you first hand what I’m talking about (by the way brother, I’m sorry for that) when I met him for the first time. Part of my vernacular has always been to be humorous, or at least try to be. I catch a lot of flack from Jay but then again, that’s Jay. He’s smart and quick, and he’ll call you out on anything.

As some of you may know, I used to drive a taxi here in Orlando back when the kids were barely crawling. I truly enjoyed meeting people from all over the world. I did it for a few years, and had some repeat customers, but mostly I drove the tourists all over central Florida. I even took a family on a full day charter tour, including shopping in chic Winter Park, to lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Daytona Beach, to buying Coffee Mugs at the world famous Ron Jon’s Surf shop in Cocoa Beach. I charged them a flat rate of $50 an hour to go wherever they wanted. 280 miles and 7 hours later, I dropped them off at their hotel in Disney, and the gentleman handed me $500. It was the best single day I ever had.because that’s what I usually made in a week.

A regular annual event at Disney is Gay Days. It usually happens in the early summer. Disney has always been very gay friendly, even extending medical benefits to gay partners. They were one of the first companies to do so.

One night during the week long festivities, I was driving around MGM Studios, running a lot of “short runs” to and from the Disney Hotels. I remember it was busy and I was doing well that evening. I took a call for a cab at the parking area for MGM, and I arrived quickly to pick up my fare. It was a female and two males, and they directed me to their hotel. As we chatted up, I asked them if it was busy in MGM and the girl said yes. Then in all my great assumption I said, and I quote, “I have to tell you, you’re all very nice people when you come to town each year”. They looked at each other, puzzled, and said “what do you mean?” I responded with, “You know, Gay Days.” One of the guys said, “Umm we’re not gay.”

Awkward to say the least, the cab was much quieter after that, and I didn’t get a tip.

Random Fact # 1: New Yorkers make up half of all domestic visitors to The Walt Disney Resort.

P.S. I drove Bruce Willis to the airport from the Peabody Hotel with his publicist. Wow.