'Faith Hill is beautiful, but she ain't sexy'

The driver started yammering almost before I got into the cab.

"Where are you flying to?"

"Jacksonville."

He immediately asked where I'd been, so I told him all about my extra-lucky weekend in D.C.: a job interview and the chance to visit a friend on her 30th birthday.

"Her birthday? You didn't come all the way up here for a she."

"Yes I did!"

"You mean his birthday! Yes, you do!"

"Not at all. Janna is one of my closest friends from grad school, and besides, my boyfriend is in New Orleans --"

"You've got another man up here in Washington."

"Really, it was just the job interview and her party --"

"Let me tell you something. Women cheat. Women cheat more than men. Studies show ..."

I could have insisted that I don't cheat, could never cheat, but I realized I was up against not just an opinionated individual but a human channeling an avalanche of words. I'm a journalist; I meet these people often. The thing to do is sit back and just catch the best things they throw at you.

The driver: "Women cheat faster, that's what I mean. Studies show: You might not cheat, but 99 percent of men would cheat with you. If you asked."

"What a finding."

The ride to the airport took all of 10 minutes, but the driver's near-monologue ranged over the vast, charged acreage of love, sex, careers and power. I started thinking about how people had been looking at me and even talking to me a little more than usual all day. The interview suit -- that's what must have done it, I thought.

He asked me about working in journalism. He said dozens of journalists had shared his cab before. He knew we start small and hop from one market to another -- bigger and bigger ones, if possible. One day I might want to write for the Washington Post, he said. But I might not care where I worked if I just wanted to "make up the news," as he said most journalists do.

But people want to be nice. If he saw me as an aspiring teller of tall tales, it didn't stop him from encouraging me.

"Let me tell you something," he said as the U.S. Airways dropoff came into view. "Faith hill is beautiful, but she ain't sexy."

"What?"

"If you want to go anywhere in this world, you gotta have it. In your interview? You've got to sell yourself when you're in there. You've got to have that confidence. Let them know you can do the job."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Sell yourself. Be confident. Show them you're ready for anything."

My assents did nothing to stop him from telling me, over and over again, to be strong and confident and grab those interviewers' attention and show them just how ready I am to work with them. Did his advice come too late? I'd been practicing self-promotion all day, and didn't feel I had dropped the ball during the actual interview. Was there some discrepancy between my attitude and my suit? It had been a long day.

I felt the cab driver was either going to drive off, still talking, or follow me right into the terminal and up to the security checkpoint, saying "Faith Hill is beautiful, but she ain't sexy. Sell yourself. Have that confidence!" But even as he ran his mouth, he remembered he had a job to do, and so after dipping into the trunk for my bag and following me right up to the door, he went back to driving. I wondered who he would talk at next. And I laughed all the way to the gate.