Our excursion to the hospital a couple of days ago marked the first time in three months that we had been in an automobile; aside from the Uber that we called for cat-tree-hauling duties on our third day in Paris, we’ve either taken a train of some sort or hoofed it. Somewhat to my own surprise, I don’t miss having a car at all; while some of this is due to the differences in roads here (the intersections within intersections are the clearest evidence that large swathes of the city was set up for horse and foot traffic, which, surprise, it was), I’m not looking forward to the return of strip malls and the necessity of driving everywhere when we return to Houston.
We rode to the hospital in an Uber, as prearranging a cab is unreliable unless done by a hotel concierge, and since the nearest cabstand is a 10 minute walk away. The ride was pleasant, uneventful, and even hypnotizing; the hour was so early that we saw the Champs-Élysées in a previously-unimaginable state of silence.
The ride home proved to be a different story; as no Ubers were in our immediate vicinity, we walked out of the hospital and hopped into a taxi that had just finished vomiting its previous occupants. The Purrito and I spent the entire ride attempting not to look horrified, as the driver, who kept looking in the rearview mirror at us, proceeded to have no fewer than a half-dozen near misses with other cars.
I now know how all those poor passengers I ferried around in Grand Theft Auto IV felt.
Fezzik In Paris 