Don't judge a book

I went out with some friends the other night. I haven't been dancing in ages, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but we knew when to call it quits, keeping in mind how hard it is to find an empty cab at that time of night on a Saturday. On like the 30th attempt, we successfully flagged one down, and gratefully climbed in. 

While chatting with my friend, I mentioned something about my time in Italy. The driver, who had till now been quiet, piped up, and asked how long I had been there. I told him I had been there for three months this summer. Then, in Italian, he asked me how I had learned to speak the language. I was so excited! When he discovered that I had learned Italian at university in Montreal, he then switched to French! 

He explained that his parents were Lebanese, but that he had grown up in Paris. When he was 14, he fell in love with a girl who was the daughter of the Iranian ambassador to France. She attended the Italian language high school, but he went to school in French. The cab driver explained that he went to his father, and convinced him to let him switch schools to go to the Italian language school as well. He took Italian classes through the summer from 9:00 until 6:00 six days a week, and when he started at the new school, he and the girl were in the same class. He also added that she was one of a set of twins, a skinny girl and a chubby girl, and "I was with the chubby one." Haha, it was kind of endearing. 

As crazy as that story might seem, I want to believe it's true. I mean, he really could speak French and Italian. That much wasn't made up. It does make me wonder how someone who speaks 4 languages and has the kind of educated and diverse background he did, ends up a cab driver in Boston...