So I Used To Be A Cabbie.

So I used to be a cabbie. I didn't work in the big city, but just in my suburban burg. Still, I came across my fair share of crazy things. This was made more fun since I'm naturally a night owl, so I would usually opt to work the graveyard shift.

One particular night stands out well in my memory. It was a brisk autumn Saturday evening. These were always fun, because you get all your drunk bar runs. Drunks were always a hit or miss. You'd either get a happy drunk, who was more than happy to tip you well, and maybe even buy you something to eat, or you'd get the angry drunk who you might have to throw out of your car.

This particular night I picked up a guy from a bar, who just seemed to be an arrogant prick. He kept saying loudly, that "I'm gonna go home and smoke some pot and fuck a whore". This guy immediately made me uncomfortable. He then asked me if I wanted to buy some pot, and I said sure, since I didn't want to upset this guy who seemed quite unpredictable. That's when he said, "well, I'm a cop, and you're under arrest."

Perplexed by all this, he then said with a smirk, "but I'm off duty. So I guess I won't arrest you. If you want to buy some, come to this dark corner behind so and so building tomorrow at midnight". I said sure, and dropped him off.

Next up, I picked up two teenagers who were obviously stoners. A friendly bunch of guys, but they didn't have any money for their cab fair. They asked if it was okay if they paid me in weed, and I said sure.

Next, I picked up a gal who was heading to work for the graveyard shift at a grocery store. So I'm heading down the highway, and I see a little red Mazda that's crashed into something, and was pulled over by the side of the road. I slow down to get a better look, and see this guy standing outside his car looking over a deer.

I keep going and drop the gal off and pick up this cool laid back kid at a convenience store in one of those not-the-best-neighborhoods in town. The kid gets in the car and tells me where he's going, while I start updating my paperwork real quick.

That's when I notice a strange sight standing outside of the convenience store. A see a light skinned black kid, wearing a straw hat, and chewing on a piece of straw. Not exactly a common sight in my neck of the woods. He comes up to my window and taps on the glass. I roll down the window a little bit and the guy asked for a cigarette. I tell him, "no, these are cloves and they goddamned expensive." He then offers me a dollar, and I still tell him no. I can now tell that he's drunker than a skunk, and he ups his offer to a dollar plus a small lighter that doesn't work. He then says that he's friends with my fair, and I should give him a cigarette. I turn around and ask my fair if he's friends with him. My fair, who by now is gripping his seat in fear, says, "hell, no!"

That's when our straw hat wearing friend reaches his hand into the car, saying, "just give me a goddamned cigarette!", and I start to roll the window up on his arm. He then warns me, "you're not gonna roll that window up on my arm, are you?" That's when I roll it all the way up, put the car in reverse, give the gas a good tap. Needless to say, that screwed up our hat wearing friend's night.

So I driving my fair and I come across that crashed Mazda again, coming from the other direction. I slow down to a crawl to see what's going on. It seems that our guy had decided that the best course of action was to drag this deer by it's horns onto the median strip. That's when the deer, who had apparently just been knocked unconscious, began to wake up. Our Mazda driver, not knowing what else to do, decided to start throw haymakers at that deer.

I called our dispatch and told her, "you better call the police before this idiot gets himself killed".

Ah, the joys of crazy people.

 

Two more cab stories.

I picked up a gal and guy at a bar. Both were in their early 20's, the gal had short blonde hair, and it was quickly obvious that she was wearing a tank top without a bra, and that tank top was, well, let's just say stretchy on the top.

So these two are drunk as hell, and they ask me to take them to Taco Bell. I clearly remember them both munching on chili cheese burritos in the car, because the smell made me wanna yark.

In any case, these two are necking like crazy in the car and he get to the gal's house. The guy asks me to wait for him. I said, "how do I know you're going to bill the fair?" He said he'd just leave his shirt in the car and he'll be right back.

These two love birds were so drunk that they laid down in the front yard and started dry humping each other on the front lawn. While I'm sitting there pondering about how gross that would be with those burritos and with the meter running, they both go inside for what I can only guess would be a happy booty call.

20 minutes later, that meter is getting pretty steep and a cop drives by. He asks me what I'm doing and I explain the situation. The cop asks, "wait, so the guy got naked in the car?" I told him, no, he just left his shirt in here. The cop say, oh, okay, and goes about his business.

40 minutes later the guy comes back to the car and I drive him home. A pretty good night, since that one fair cost this guy 70 bucks.

 

One more story. This one's a real treat.

So it's a COLD winter night. And I get a call at the local mall. This kid gets in my car, and screams turn on the heat! It's cold out, but really this guy is over reacting. I ask him what his problem is, and he tells me "I got wet".

Wet? I look back at this guy, and I immediately notice that he, well...he looks really really dumb. Trust me, I'm not that judgmental, but this guy just looked DUMB. He was kind of buck toothed, and for some reason, couldn't help but show those buck teeth, no matter what his facial expression was.

Well, I didn't realize this at the time, but it seems that earlier this night, this kid decided that the thing to do was to buy some beer. Well, he couldn't really buy some beer, because he was underage.

Now most people, facing this situation, would just find a friend old enough to buy for him. But not our buck-toothed friend. He was a man with a plan.

He decided to go to the store, pick up a case of beer, and just run as fast as he could. The clerk yells at the guy, and as it turns out, there's a cop in the store.

So now this kid is driving down the road at top speed with a cop chasing him. The kid gets out of the sight of the cop, loses control of the car, and drives off the road, down an embankment, and crashes into a creek.

Now our brilliant buck-toothed friend has a couple of options. Go to the road and give himself up or....

No, he's not going to do that. Instead he decides to sit in those woods for (count them) four hours. He drinks his beer, which luckily is now ice cold, but unfortunately for him, so is he. Our buck-toothed friend decides that four hours of sitting in the cold will be enough to get the cops off his trail.

So buck-tooth walks all the way out of the embankment, walks several miles to the mall, and calls up his mom. His mom decides to call him a cab, and that's when I show up.

Now, I didn't know any of this, but I'm driving buck-tooth home and he tells me, "we should just drive by my house first. I might need you to take me to a relative's house that's the next county over"

So this weirds me out and I start to pull into his mom's apartment building. That's when I discover that I'm suddenly surrounded by police cars. Buck tooth screams "run! run! get out of here!" I tell him, "hell, no."

Buck-tooth, now facing total defeat waits as the police open the door and arrest him. The cop tells buck tooth, "don't forget to pay the cabbie". Buck tooth pays me, gets handcuffed, and led away into the back of a police car. The police tell me the back story of everything that happened, while I'm sitting there laughing my ass off.

I tell my dispatcher everything, and she's laughing too. The kid's mom calls the cab company up and angrily asks why I didn't scram when the cops surrounded my car. My dispatcher informs her that would be illegal. She screams that we have to do what she's paying us to do. That's when our dispatcher says, "well, your son got another ride for free."

 

It happens. I got jipped on one fair by a freaking 10 year old. That was embarrassing.

We had this one cabbie that everyone called Bear. If you looked at the guy you'd know why he was called that. Bear was a guy in his mid-40's, and didn't take crap from anyone.

He picked up this one kid and the kid ended up running on him. Well, Bear decided to run after the kid. Bear tackles the kid, waves his fist in front of him and screams, "give me my goddamned money!" The kid says, "here! here!" and reaches into his pocket and pulls out a knife. Bear punches the kids hand and the kid jumps up and runs away again. Bear chases the kid some more, tackles him again and says, "give me my goddamned money!" The kid says, "I have a stereo I can give you". Bear repeats his demand again. "GIVE ME MY GODDAMNED MONEY!!!" The kid gives him the 6 bucks he has for his 12 dollar fair. Bear decides to take the rest of his fair out on the kid's face. Yikes.

I gotta tell ya...as far as I'm concerned, 12 bucks ain't worth all that effort.

 

Being a cabbie can be a dangerous job. Sometimes you know as soon as a fair gets in the car if he's going to be trouble.

I picked up this one guy who was real shifty. He kept looking around. He wanted me to take him out of county, which means we get to ask for some money up front. He didn't want to pay upfront, made a big fuss about it, but I told him I wouldn't take him unless he paid up front.

So the guy gives me a $50 and I take him to a pretty shadey freaking neighborhood. He tells me to pull into this parking space, and turn off the car and the lights. I asked him, why do you want me to turn off the car and the lights? You planning on robbing me? He says, "no! no! I'm not gonna do that. Trust me! trust me!"

So I pull up, but we're trained never to box ourselves in. You do that, and you can get yourself killed. I turn on the interior lights and the guy says, "turn out the goddamn lights!" I tell him no. That's when he pulls a gun on me, and says, "give me your money!"

I tell him, "see, I told you, you were going to rob me" He says, "give me your money!" I tell him, "are you really gonna shoot me over 50 bucks?" He says again, "give me your money!" I tell the guy, "Look, you can shoot me if that's what you're going to do. But I ain't gonna give you my money. It ain't gonna happen."

The guy says, "whatever" and gets out of the car. I ask him, "are you going to pay the rest of your fair?" He says, "what?" I said, "you still owe me another 9 bucks" He says, "I don't have any more money" I tell him, "well, you gotta figure out someway to pay, or I'm gonna have to call the cops". He curses at me a little bit, and decides to give me his credit card.

I swipe his credit card and tell him to have a good night. He curses me again and walks off.

What our armed friend didn't know is that the cab had a video camera in it. It got his entire attempted robbery on film. And the best part? His credit card gave the police a name and an address for the guy they were looking for.

Talk about stupid. Oh, I almost forgot the best part. The fair was actually under $50. I actually owed him 9 bucks. It seems my fair got so worked up trying to rob me, that he forgot to do some math.

 

The way the company I worked for did things was like this. You could either lease the cab or rent the cab. If you leased it, you did it by the week. You'd own the cab company so much money on a weekly basis, and whatever was left over after gas was yours.

The way I did it was that I rented the cab. Basically, you bought the cab for 6 hours, and then at a fixed rate hourly after that. It worked out to be about 40 bucks a night plus gas. The rest you kept. Each fair pays your salary.

Basically, you had to make $8 an hour in fairs, and the rest was gravy. So, some nights I'd walk home with $200, other really slow nights, I ended up oweing the company money.