My pax had a knife

Tonight I had a passenger in the front of the cab and he had a knife. Not only did he have a knife but he was agitated, really agitated. You always wonder what you will do if a situation like this occurs in your cab but until it does you really have no idea. For a split second I panicked and my mind raced. What was the right thing to do in this situation?? Keep driving and hope he doesn't use it?? or stop and bolt hopefully without provoking him into using it before I can get away??

Then he started talking. I wasn't the problem. In all reality he most likely has no idea how I felt for those few seconds. It probably never occurred to him that it would be a problem taking out a knife in a cab. You see he is a chef.

The story goes someone else in the kitchen has been using my passengers knife. Apparently that is just not on especially as they weren't looking after it which it turns out was the reason my passenger was so agitated. I guess knives are a big deal when your a chef and believe me I could see the roughness of the blade from where I was sitting. So anyway the guy then pulls out a sharpening (pole/rod) thingy that chefs use and goes to work trying to put some life back into the blade.

By this stage I had relaxed as I understood the situation and to relieve the tension a bit I grabbed the mike without actually calling anyone and jokingly shouted "Base! Base! he's got a knife, he's got a knife! We both got a good laugh out of that and the rest of the fare passed without incident.

1 thing was certain as I drove away after dropping him off. I doubt I will ever forget that fare.