Driving Dead Or Alive


               A passenger in  a taxicab tapped the driver  on the shoulder
          to  ask him something.  The driver  screamed, lost control of the
          car, grabbed the wheel and overcompensated, careened across three
          lanes of  traffic with  horns honking from  near misses,  finally
          snapped the  wheel back into his lane  but sideswiped a city bus,
          ripping  off it's  side  mirrors, went  airborne  as the  vehicle
          catapulted  over  the  curb,  swerved   to  miss  a  cluster   of
          pedestrians and skidded  a hundred feet just inches  from a large
          plate glass window.   For a few minutes everything was  silent in
          the cab, then the driver said, "Please don't ever  do that again.
          You scared the daylights out of me."

               The  passenger, who was also frightened, apologized and said
          he didn't realize  that a tap on the shoulder  could frighten him
          so much, to which the driver replied, "I'm sorry, it's really not
          your fault at all.  Today is my first day driving a cab.  For the
          past 25 years I have been driving a hearse.