(This is intended as a positive story. No doubt there are ways to parse it otherwise and if you wish to do that, knock yourself out. The story is true and it happened just yesterday.)

I was out of town yesterday. It was late in the afternoon and I was making my way back to the airport. My client had called a cab for me. I went outside to wait and cab approached. I flagged him. He stopped. I got in - just in time to hear, on the cab's radio, the call go out to another cab to pick me up! Oh well. My guy was faster.

I tell him where I want to go. He acknowledges. He starts cabbiechat. I'm almost always up for cabbiechat. It is usually inane, but usually good for a laugh. I engage, even as I am checking my Blackberry.

He eventually gets around to the pretty much pro forma question of where I'm from. "New York?" he asks, as many do, given my Fairfield County, CT accent. "No. DC." I usually say that rather than Baltimore cuz I've learned that saying your from Baltimore always gets followed up by asking how often I get into DC. So I have learned to save that step and go right to the (cabbiechat) chase.

"DC?" He asks. "Yeah." I answer.

"It has really changed there lately, hasn't it?" That caught me off guard. It wasn't the next line on my copy of the Cabbiechat Script I had been using. I put down the Blackberry.

"How so?" I ask. Not challengingly, but more curiously.

"The last eight years. Very bad. I am from Africa. I even thought about going back. Maybe to Uganda or Kenya ...... " His voice trailed off, his eyes in the mirror, watching for my reaction.

I smile broadly and I watch his face. It lit up with an 'I found a kindred soul' look. (We are in the capitol city of a VERY red Southern state).

"Bush?" I ask. "Yes. George DoubleYoo Boosh." he spits.

"He should be in prison." I say. He laughs and agrees.

"Where are you from?" I ask. "I am from Somalia. But since six months I am a US citizen!"

"So, I guess you're happy about Obama?" I ask him laughingly. "Oh yes. I only wish I was a citizen then so I could have voted for him."

We talk about Somalia. Pirates. Rednecks. His brother-in-law in Arlington, VA and his several visits to the DC area. The cab ride took, it seemed, 2 minutes.

He was a nice man.

And very clever at finding out the political bent of his passengers. I LIKE that in a person.