As many of you may have known, this morning I was set for my semi-regular gig on the Michael Coren Show. Given that I hate driving, Crossroads Television is kind enough to arrange ground transportation from my home in London to the studio (about a 1.5 hour drive) and back. After taping the show, I went outside where I was supposed to meet the cab driver who had dropped me off. At 12:40, 10 minutes past when he was supposed to be there, he stepped out of a mini-van telling me that he had locked the keys out of his car, and his friend would drive he and I back to where his car was.

By this point, I assumed that he had corrected the problem, not that his friend (who kindly moved his child’s carseat to give me room in the back) would be giving us the scenic tour of Burlington as they tried to find the nearest CAA (the Northern version of AAA.) As we arrived to a CAA office, my flustered cab driver went in. 10 minutes later he emerged, not knowing that one needs a membership to receive help from them. The backup plan was to call a tow-truck to the friend’s apartment where the cab was still parked from their visit while I was taping.

As we trekked across town, I learned that my driver and his friend hadn’t seen each other in 10 years, so the driver took advantage of the fact that he was in town to have a quick reunion. They were actually university classmates in — wait for it — Iraq! Buddy had only been in Canada for a couple of months.

My driver was very apologetic through this; and needless to say I was pretty pissed with the ordeal. However, it took seeing the cross hanging from the friend’s rearview mirror for me to mellow out. This guy is getting settled into a new country, and out of the blue he gets a call from an old friend, and then has to drive him and a complete stranger around town for an hour and a half. Whether he had a positive outlook on this event or not, he was doing the Christian thing: helping a total stranger, and his friend. On my end, being mad or rude would have accomplished nothing. If anything, it would have made for a really awkward drive home. I decided to do the Christian thing as well and show compassion and support for the man who presumably wasn’t doing this intentionally.

Someone who says what I say about Muslims needs to approach the situation of being in a strange vehicle in a strange city with two Arabs talking in the front seat in Arabic with a certain level of caution.) But, I got over my fear that I was being kidnapped when one bought me a coffee.

We got onto the highway an hour and a half late, so I only lost about the length of a movie from my day: another reason to not fret about it too much. So remember, when you watch the Michael Coren Show tonight, think of the ordeal that followed!