"Ladies and Gentlemen!,..." shrieked the gent with excitement befitting a 2 year old that has just been handed his pacifier rather than a moderately well dressed, haggardly fellow who seems to have suffered 20 something years of a series of misunderstandings that we call life. But, contrary to its title, this is not a story dwelling of the answer to life, the universe and everything.

"...just around the bend - they are coming! 4 of them in blue and white. It is a very close one ...", the shrieking continued. The few other mortals around were hardly disconcerted with this gent's reporting. "They are approaching! And in a few seconds, we will all know ...". What a fuss! "And the winner is ...", continued the shouting.

Meanwhile, the WEYALA of the first taxi sped to a stop near the gent and yelled "Mexico, Stadium, Shewa Dabo!". There I spoiled it - now you know the winner. Unfortunately for our aspiring young reporter, the WEYALA of the second one announced the same destination with much more enthusiasm and so did the third. He ran with anticipation to the fourth only to be greeted with an unpleasant looking being with a bulging left cheek and green stuff oozing out of the corner of his mouth. "Mexico?" was the single uninspired utterance from this WEYALA. Still, our reporter's heart found room to sink more.

This gentleman of amicable temperament had waited for forty more minutes at Wollo Sefer. Had it not been for the pleasant combination of the burning sun and the strong chilly wind, which separately many have induced a totally opposite sentiment, he would have felt really bad. He finally came to the realisation that standing there wondering about why Mexico was so popular with Taxis was not going to bring one that would dare to go to Arat Kilo. So he swallowed his pride and stepped into a Mexico taxi, willing to take his chances at Shewa Dabo.

Until very recently, Shewa Dabo has just been a mere route to this young fella, a place of no importance. But recently, the Taxis from Arat Kilo would not dream of going any further. The drivers must really like the smell of Shewa Dabo's Dabo or rather they must really hate the 'glamour' of Bole. Interesting; this could be a really good topic for a research paper on "Comparative Psychoanalysis of The Thinkings of Taxi Operators". Although, it must be noted, there exists a school of thought among mere mortals of a different disposition than Psychology, that Taxi operators in Addis Ababa have no such an organ that they could delegate the cherished act of thinking to. But I take no sides. Nevertheless, right there, at Shewa Dabo, our gent found a taxi to Arat Kilo whose weyala was desperately trying to fill with optimism. "Arat Kilo - HULET SEW!". Two people, mused our gent, is the number of people in the taxi besides him. There is also a school of thought amongst mathematicians that WEYALAs are experts at Inverted Mathematics - an art form that is so rare to find these days.

To cut a short story shorter, the gent I have spoken of so far, having finally found a Taxi to his destination, resigned to a comfortable position and took out his mobile phone. He fingered some buttons and once more sank into the seat and stared at the screen of his contraption with a smile on his face. To an innocent observer, he looked absolutely out of his mind. But I know better. On the screen of his tiny contraption was a page of text from a book by a British author who goes by the name of P G Wodehouse. And in those pages, he found amusement like he has not found in a book for quite a while. And when he finally reached his destination, he thought ... maybe I could write something about these annoying Arat Kilo Taxis.

So long and thanks for all the ride.