During the past few weeks, I got to meet up with some old school days friends from way back when. We were celebrating our 30-year high school reunion. Yes. We were all very much older than our Moss Park and Flag Pole Hill days. But, ya know what? We were still all there for each other. We were proud of the ones with kids in college (some in Harvard, no less), sad for those who had lost someone or a classmate too early, and genuinely happy to see each other. It was a great time that my one of my dearest friends and I had planned for ahead of time.

She was flying in from L.A. with her family. We would enjoy the reunion for three days together as the fabulous women we are today and in our yesteryears. Then bring the family and children back in for one final evening at the Dallas Arboretum for a Chihuly Nights concert in the gardens.

The best laid plans… go off without a hitch. Because we are two smart women and had a great cab driver.

My friend and I knew better than to drink and drive. We were headed for the Katy Trail Ice House on a Thursday evening and had been warned of the parking nightmare ahead of us. So we hopped in a cab from the Hotel Palomar and headed toward the nightlife. After we had experienced our fabulous flashback to high school, we were ready to head home. So we got in the valet’s line for a taxi.

A lovely taxi/van pulled up, we got in and, just as the driver was pulling away, a guy jumped in the front passenger seat.

Not just any guy. Picture a 24-year-old football linebacker from a college in Texas that recruits the biggest players from all the high schools. Seriously, he was huge. And sweating profusely.

“What the **** are you during, dude?” my friend Susan said as she exited the vehicle quickly to find the security guard. She’s from Texas but has been in California for more than 20 years. No one takes her cab in either state!

“I’m just gonna share the cab,” the drunken linebacker-in-a-polo-shirt sputtered out to me as he looked back.

“This is our cab,” I said to him in disbelief from the back seat less than two feet away, very aware that I still had our driver and all of the valets and people in the line watching us. “Get out! Now!”

“No, we’re just gonna share! He’ll drop you off and I’ll pay the rest of the way.”

He hadn’t finished his first slurred sentence by the time I had climbed out.

Gosh bless our cab driver. He read that guy for filth, as we would say in high school. The door was closed but everyone at the packed Katy Trail Ice House knew what that cab driver was conveying. Because, seconds later, the overweight, drunken guy who tried to commandeer my dear friend’s and my cab, got out and slammed the door. Huff, puff. He was gone.

We got back in and drove away. Our driver said that he’s seen guys do that before as a way to follow girls home and find out where they live. Who knows what that man had in mind but we all knew he was up to no good.

I was very thankful our scary ordeal was over. I wondered, though, whose cab that guy tried to hop in after our̓s. I hope no woman out there would ever allow some stranger to share a ride home from a bar.

I pride myself on being a pretty tough chick. But I know, even though I have studied Kung Fu and can wield a mean right punch, I would not have been able to fight off such a huge, drunken man. So the solution is to not put myself in such a dangerous situation again.

We had strength in numbers that night. Here’s to old friends! They are just who I want by my side.