perfidy

Symptoms to look out for:

• You're a cab driver
• You work in Beverly Hills, CA
• You get a fare to Chapel Hill, NC
• You decide to take it

Witness:

Cabbie says he was stiffed on $8,200

Fri Mar 30, 9:19 PM ET

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A taxi driver told police he was stiffed on an $8,200 cross-country fare by a female passenger he shuttled from Beverly Hills, Calif. to North Carolina.

The meter in Levon Mikayelyan's taxi cab hit the staggering fare after a 2,600-mile journey that ended at a Holiday Inn in Chapel Hill. Mikayelyan said the rider's family paid him only $800, Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins said Friday.

"We do get reports of people who are not able to pay cab drivers, but certainly not with this amount," Cousins said.
{...}

So Cousins is saying not all cabbies are this stupid? Good - it's been my general experience that they're not, though they can be a thieving lot, depending on the city you're in.

They're often apparent refugees of Austin Powers' least favorite group:

Carnies. Circus folk. Nomads, you know. Smell like cabbage. Small hands.

But they're not often this stupid.