A Fare and the Fear
This was also briefly deleted. Originally posted early morning of 12.31.6. Again, the original comments (one of which contained good vomit advice from wil) are gone.
A drawback to most really good fares (and I should say that by "really good," I'm thinking $50+) is that they often involve going, well, a long way away. Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to go to Kelso or the southwestern boonies or Scapoose or La Center or wherever the hell the customer wants to go (San Francisco is the holy grail, I know a guy who scored that one). It just about always works out in my favor to take a trip that long, even if I end up far away from where I want to be. But the fact remains, deadheading is deadheading, and it's something I dislike and try to do as little of as possible. The best trips are ones like these, which somehow manage to run-up the meter and leave me someplace I actually don't mind being.
I had my ideal trip as a cab-driver tonight. At the beginning of my shift, I picked up a bartender just getting off at a bar in Northeast. Yesterday had been her birthday, and she and her boyfriend were shacked up at the Convention Center Holiday Inn. The problem was that she'd left her new movies at home, so we had to go out to her place to get the movies, then go back to the Holiday Inn.
She lives in Gresham, right off the Banfield.
So we drive out there while having a lovely conversation and mutually enjoying some Tribe Called Quest, she runs in and gets the movies, stops at 7-11, and we drive back. $60 on the meter, plus a decent tip, all for talking to a cool, hot, and intelligent woman and listening to music I love for half an hour. And at the end of it, I was only about 20 blocks away from where I'd started, and in the heart of my favorite stomping grounds. This trip turned what ended up being a pretty slow Saturday into a good one for me, and is one of those little moments of exultation that only other cab-drivers can really understand.
I had another trip tonight where I took five people from around Fremont & Kerby out to around SW Multnomah and Oleason. Thery were incredibly drunk, stupid, and obnoxious, and all I could think about the whole drive there was how drunk, stupid, and obnoxious they were. Then we get there, and one of them gives me a $10 tip on the $30 fare, and I have a higher opinion of them. Then the drunk one sitting up front stayed in the car, and I started to get annoyed, until he said that I was taking home. ToVancouver
I'm going to work tonight (New Year's Eve). I am not happy about this. At all. Not because I've ever particularly given much of a damn about New Year's as a holiday (I haven't), but because I really, really, don't want to be driving a cab on the biggest amateur night of the year. I'm dreading it, and that's not an overstatement. I am frustrated and scared, absolutely terrified, that someone is going to throw up in my cab for the first time, ever (granted, I haven't worked a New Year's Eve before, and hadn't planned to). I've been told to have plastic bags on hand.
I have a feeling that I will be refusing many people service. It'll likely be a night when the standing rule gets enforced.
But even though my New Year will likely be ushered in with puke, stunning acts of idiocy, horrific driving, and (hopefully) a big roll of bills, that doesn't mean that I'm pessimistic about the upcoming year itself. In fact, I find myself unusually optimistic about it, and hope you feel the same way. Have a good and safe night.
(Oh, and Brian has a hilarious blog and some good advice
A drawback to most really good fares (and I should say that by "really good," I'm thinking $50+) is that they often involve going, well, a long way away. Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to go to Kelso or the southwestern boonies or Scapoose or La Center or wherever the hell the customer wants to go (San Francisco is the holy grail, I know a guy who scored that one). It just about always works out in my favor to take a trip that long, even if I end up far away from where I want to be. But the fact remains, deadheading is deadheading, and it's something I dislike and try to do as little of as possible. The best trips are ones like these, which somehow manage to run-up the meter and leave me someplace I actually don't mind being.
I had my ideal trip as a cab-driver tonight. At the beginning of my shift, I picked up a bartender just getting off at a bar in Northeast. Yesterday had been her birthday, and she and her boyfriend were shacked up at the Convention Center Holiday Inn. The problem was that she'd left her new movies at home, so we had to go out to her place to get the movies, then go back to the Holiday Inn.
She lives in Gresham, right off the Banfield.
So we drive out there while having a lovely conversation and mutually enjoying some Tribe Called Quest, she runs in and gets the movies, stops at 7-11, and we drive back. $60 on the meter, plus a decent tip, all for talking to a cool, hot, and intelligent woman and listening to music I love for half an hour. And at the end of it, I was only about 20 blocks away from where I'd started, and in the heart of my favorite stomping grounds. This trip turned what ended up being a pretty slow Saturday into a good one for me, and is one of those little moments of exultation that only other cab-drivers can really understand.
I had another trip tonight where I took five people from around Fremont & Kerby out to around SW Multnomah and Oleason. Thery were incredibly drunk, stupid, and obnoxious, and all I could think about the whole drive there was how drunk, stupid, and obnoxious they were. Then we get there, and one of them gives me a $10 tip on the $30 fare, and I have a higher opinion of them. Then the drunk one sitting up front stayed in the car, and I started to get annoyed, until he said that I was taking home. To
I'm going to work tonight (New Year's Eve). I am not happy about this. At all. Not because I've ever particularly given much of a damn about New Year's as a holiday (I haven't), but because I really, really, don't want to be driving a cab on the biggest amateur night of the year. I'm dreading it, and that's not an overstatement. I am frustrated and scared, absolutely terrified, that someone is going to throw up in my cab for the first time, ever (granted, I haven't worked a New Year's Eve before, and hadn't planned to). I've been told to have plastic bags on hand.
I have a feeling that I will be refusing many people service. It'll likely be a night when the standing rule gets enforced.
But even though my New Year will likely be ushered in with puke, stunning acts of idiocy, horrific driving, and (hopefully) a big roll of bills, that doesn't mean that I'm pessimistic about the upcoming year itself. In fact, I find myself unusually optimistic about it, and hope you feel the same way. Have a good and safe night.
(Oh, and Brian has a hilarious blog and some good advice
posted by Crabbie at 5:57 AM
2 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Deleted because the poster just continues to not get it, and likely never will.
For those who have something resembling a clue, the place to raise concerns about sensitivity or privacy is in email, not a public forum. Because the "problem" is simply compounded when it's repeated.
It's like screaming to someone across the street "HEY BILL, YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TOLD EVERYONE THAT MY SISTER HAS SEX WITH GOATS, THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PRIVATE." Yes, you've addressed the initial problem, but you've also created new ones.
I never claimed to think much or care about what I write here - in fact I've plainly stated several times that I really, truly, honestly don't.
I just have never given a fuck, at all, about appearances or propriety. Very few people read this site (even fewer of them from Portland) and the site was originally intended for even less people. Remember that I haven't been worried about this becoming a gossip site because... nobody reads it.
So if I do something wrong, correct me. But do it privately (and perhaps even sensibly and respectfully, as only one of you seems to have shit for brains). Otherwise, things aren't fixed, it's just you making yourself look like an asshole in an effort to point out the fact that I'm an asshole.
And everybody already knows I'm an asshole anyway.
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