Blessed to be alive!

Q. Can you be taxi driver if you have narcolepsy? Most, including us, would answer "No way! That is totally not safe!"
However, we'd all be mistaken because we are pretty sure we had a narcoleptic driver! In our 20-25 minute, taxi ride home from church we confidently got into the car and began our trip home. We noticed that the driver had decided to take the scenic route, (most likely because of our American Nationality and to run up the meter). We were okay with it for a number of reasons. It really is a way more beautiful drive, it does skip some of the heavier traffic and it doesn't cost a whole lot more. Boy will he regret trying to take advantage of us! Read on.
So he was doing great with his extremely offensive and sharp driving techniques until we got to a stoplight. Now I should have noticed something was off with this guy at this point, but it wasn't so obvious. At the light he was doing his nails or something and didn't notice that the light was green. So the car behind us politely reminded him with their horn. Once in motion he proceeded to drive through the intersection, but on a collision course with another extremely offensive, sharp driving individual who was about to turn across traffic. I thought our driver was aware of this path of potential panic and was maybe reading a sign or checkin' out a sweet ride (car), but to his chagrin (embarrassment) was not aware until a few feet from impact. He skillfully swerved to avoid the vehicle. Crisis averted, right? Well...yes...for the time being. So as we continued the ride Lois and I had noticed that he was leaning on the steering wheel and slowing down. He appeared to be "squinting" as if to read a sign. So we thought nothing of it. Well to our chagrin we realized that he wasn't "squinting"...he was sleeping! How did we know? Well in areas where there was no reason to squint he was still "squinting". Lois had made the discover by noticing the correlation between his "squinting" and letting off the gas peddle at very awkward times.
Once this was established we did our best to make sure that we would not be in any immediate danger. In one of his narcoleptic spells I said, in English: "Are you okay?" He woke abruptly to begin laughing, as did we, with hopes to humiliate him into staying awake as he drove. He responded in broken English, "I'm okay! Ha ha ha!" (He laughed in Chinese though) The embarrassment was a good effort and probably would have worked for someone just dozing from a long day or a late night, but not with a narcoleptic! Ohhh no. Not him. Not for Dong YeHong. He was awake for a few more seconds and proceeded to do some fancy, controlled, narcoleptic driving. I say fancy because he made a few turns and took a few curves while mostly if not completely asleep! He stayed in the lane (which was better than when he was awake) whenever he began the trance and, THANKFULLY, his foot would let off the gas instead of the opposite. He never even woke so abruptly that he'd over correct or forget where he was. He was pretty smooth...almost as if he had done some narcoleptic driving before.
So during his continued unconsciousness, I decided to do whatever I could to ensure our safe arrival to our home and I began to use what little Chinese I knew to keep him awake. I asked him if his name was what was clearly stated, in English as well as Chinese on the dash. That bought us a few seconds...well long enough for him to process what I was talking about and to say yes. After that, once again it was lights out for our struggling friend. Now I let him go to see if he would wake. I tried laughing, because I did think it was quite funny. Lois was getting a little worried for our safety at this time, but still saw the humor in the situation. (Yet another reason why I married that woman) I also did not want to use all the Chinese that I knew before getting to a point where we could walk if necessary. So he slowly came to. We were getting much closer to home, but still not quite close enough. As he was in and out of consciousness I proceeded to ask him in Chinese how old he was. He didn't answer the first time I asked (imagine that). I repeated myself in a louder voice two more times to finally arouse an answer. He finally broke the grasp of narcolepsy and in Chinese began to laugh and say, "I won't tell you." He was saying it was bad to ask. We finally approached the turn for our place and I proceeded to tell him where to turn. The turn is about 100 or so feet from the front of our building and he still had to squeeze in one more snooze. Even though Lois doesn't think so the guy gave us a little break in the fare due to his condition. There were never any close calls. But we honestly think that we were blessed by Heavenly Father to have made it home considering the situation.