Dear Diary:
My husband, Craig, was returning to Ohio from a conference in San Juan, P.R., and was scheduled to catch a connecting flight at Kennedy Airport. A serious storm developed in Pennsylvania, and his flight was delayed and eventually canceled. By this time, it was late in the evening and hotel rooms were scarce, but he did find one available five minutes from the airport.
The taxi driver, a recent immigrant, was unsure of the hotel location. So my husband called me at home on his cellphone. I quickly logged on to the hotel's Web site and obtained the address for the driver.
Quite a few minutes later, the phone rang again. "We've been circling, and spotted it once on the other side of the expressway, but can't get there from here," my husband said.
I logged on again and relayed driving directions, turn by turn, to my husband, who passed the information on to the driver. The hotel was reached.
The apologetic driver refused to charge a fare. He received a nice tip, and everyone was happy. I never imagined that I would be guiding a New York cabby from my computer in Ohio.
Loraine Treneff
Posted by aswath at August 17, 2004 03:20 PM