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Wed 21 October 2009
Update - I have returned to Cab driving. After the events described below, I switched back to day shift.
I am driving for Spokane Cab
Rant - I hate drunks- I love drunks.
Today I drove a taxi cab. If you want to meet a wide selection of Drunks, drive a taxi cab on the night shift. Or hang around in bars.
I don't drink anymore. So bars are right out.
There's a certain type of interaction I occasionally have with Drunks. I should point out here, I mean people who are, at the moment intoxicated. Some folks use "drunks" to by synonymous with drunkards or alcoholics.
I just mean someone who is drunk for the period of our interaction.
I was dispatched to a place called the Stadium Bar on Spokane's west side. It's on the end of Wellesley Ave across from the V.A. Hospital.
I was dispatched to pick up Mister C.
When I got there, I found Mr. C in an advanced state of intoxication.
His trip was to go from the northwest of Spokane to the northeast. The address was at the corner of Westview Court and Morton Place.
Now. I know Morton St. from 1993 to 2000 I lived about half a block east of Morton.
Today I live half a block west of Morton st.
But Morton place? Curious.
I retrieved Mister C from the Stadium Bar. He assured me that he was very cool, and that he'd treat me well.
I started to geet nervous.
People who are cool and treat you well don't have to specify it. They just do it. People who assure you that they are cool and treat people well must do because often their actions are interpreted as uncool and as treating people poorly.
But I figured, what the hell. A ten, fifteen minute cab ride of saying "You''re right!" and "How amazing!" And he'd be home, none the worse for wear.
first thing he asked. "Can I smoke in your cab?"
Smoking in public places has been outlawed in the State of WA. This counts taxicabs.
So, sadly I told Mister C that smoking was not lawful in my cab.
Mister C, explained that in Las Vegas, the taxicab drivers let one smoke and drink alcoholic beverages in their vehicles.
I replied that this, indeed, sounded like fun, but smoking was not allowed in my cab.
We entered the cab. being unfamiliar with Morton Place, I grabbed the GPS mmy boss has thoughtfully installed in mmy cab, and laborioussly typed in the street address of Mister C's destination.
Mister C said "Don't you know where that is?"
This is a bad sign. A certain large minority of drunk people take exception to looking at map books or GPS devices. They assume that you should auto-magically know where every place is.
If you DON'T or have to refresh your memory, they assumme you have zero competence.
"I am making sure I am going the right direction." I assured Mister C.
"Yeah, on my dime." he complained.
I pointed out that my meter wwas dark and, as of yet displayed no amount. "I haven't started it, yet."
"Oh, Okay."
Mister C babbled happily about going to see his sister, at the destination address. I could see that he was having trouble tracking himself from moment to moment.
This is a symptom of being drunk. Really drunk people will forget what they are doing, or have done in the preceding five minutes. They follow circular but vague trains of thought sort of like a pinball machine of intentions.
If you seek to remind a drunk person of their intentions, or to help them stay focused on a single goal - you will irritate them.
If a drunk person wants to accomplish "Y", but wanders off into side track "X", and if If you say "Weren't we pursuing Y?" or "What about Y?"
The drunk person may or may not remember that he told you he wanted to accomplish Y. He may blink in recognition of his own lost thought process. He may wonder if you have psychic powers and are reading his mind, percieving the potential idea of Y before he has even framed it, or expressed it out loud.
But he will ALWAYS remember that you are a total asshole. So let them wander their mental playgrounds where things are always new and shiny. The alternative is an angry, hostile drunk.
Okay -
So having settled the course and buckled in, we exited the parking lot and drove east..
Our course turned out to be Wellesley Blvd east to Belt. Left, Northward on belt to Francis. Right on Francis Blvd about 3 1/2 or 4 miles to Nevada. Left on Nevada and .northward to Westview Court Right on westview court about a block to the corner of Morton Place and Westview Court.
Okay. This is a reasonably straight forward course.
As we drove east on Wellesley, Mister C announced that he had to stop at a store along the way for more beer.
I grimly nodded. Someone that drunk doing an errand will have trouble focusing on the task at hand. I would have to escort him, and remind him, only when asked, what we were doing there. I might have to buy the beer, too.
There is another law here in Washington State, concerning taverns. If someone is visibly intoxicated, the bartender must remove his drink and may not serve him any further.
I don't know how it works for the supermarkets.
Note - I researched this in the Revised Code of Washington - I couldn't find the specifications about bars not serving intoxicated people, let alone supermarkets.
Worse, such drunk people are often surprised and antagonized when they learn that you must pay a cab driver for waiting while you do such errands.
If they become antagonized, they view it as a cheat aand a scam, as though I have some way to just dial up random numbers on the meter in my cab. I do not.
So a shopping trip seemed fraught with the potential for conflict.
Mister C took out his phone, put it on speaker phone and called his sister.
He told her he was in the cab and moving towards her house, but planned to stop for more beer.
"Get cigarettes, too." she said.
Mister C drunkenly agreed to purchase cigarettes. He didn't ask what kind.
They repeated the exchange in different words.
"What kind of cigarettes?" I asked, hoping that Sister would clue me in. She didn't.
Then we came to the Belt and Wellesley round about. What they do here it to widen the intersection into a loop, and then place an island in the middle. Traffic is forced into a one direction circle around the loop. Counter-clockwise in this case. The intent it to replace a 4 way stop with a smoother mechanism, while slowing cars down.
I made a 3/4th loop around the round about and proceeded north.
"Wait! Whatare'ya doin'?" Mister C said "You made a wrong turn!"
"You wanted to go to the store, right?"
The store I felt he meant was the five-mile Rosauer's located along Francis.
"Yeah! But it's over there. Turn! Turn right. turn. turn"
"We are heading for Francis" I assured him.
"No we're not. Turn here." He replied.
I stuck to my guns. I wasn't going to wander off into side streets if Mister C had been confused by the roundabout.
"Dude, you're messin' up!" Mister C said.
We got to the corner and turned right onto Francis.
Mister C Called his sister on his speaker phone again. "listen, listen, listen! SHUT UP! Listen, this cab driver is going the wrong way."
"Get cigarettes!"
As we approached the five mile rosauers, I made a decision. I wasn't going to escort mister C shopping. He was already too unclear and too combative.
"We're not stopping," I said.
"What?" Mister C asked.
"No stops." I said firmly.
At this point, Mister C became irate. "I was going to tip you fifty dollars, but you blew it. Now I'm paying you this much (Waving something) and nothing more. I'm a cool guy and I treat people well, but you mess up, and you blew it."
I continued east on Francis Blvd towards Nevada St..
"You're going the wrong way. You're fuckin' with me to run up the tab, but I ain't goin for it." Mister C said.
Mister C called his sister back.
"The Cab driver is takin' the long way."
"Tell him to turn on Country Homes."
"Dude! Turn here. Turn left. turn onto Country Homes!"
I didn't point it out to him. Country Homes Blvd is right next to the Five Mile Rosauers supermarket - the one we'd already passed.
I just kept going.
His sister gave him instructions based on the idea thaat we were half a mile or more behind our actual position, and wondered why, if he was paying for the cab, I wasn't stopping on his demand.
Each time his sister suggested a road we had already passed, Mister C demanded that I turn on it, and became progressively more irritated that I didn't immediately turn onto a road we weren't near.
I could feel a sulky, hostile look crawl onto my face.
I drove north on Nevada, while sister advised driving east on Holland Ave, (A Street we were not near) and Mister C continued to describe how he had intended to tip me $100.00 or more (desite the fact that he showed me that he only had $50.00 at the start of the trip) But since I was screwing him and driving the wrong way round he was going to have to lower the boom.
He also mentioned that he'd like to smoke. The legality of the issue did not concern him. He suggested that I go to Las Vegas to learn how to drive a cab properly.
I arrived at his sister's apartment building.
"Get..Out...Of...The...Cab,...Sir" I grated.
"Oh! Now you're kicking me out, too!" Misster C exclaimed, outraged.
"Exit the vehicle now, please."
It took Mister C a couple of minutes to flop and scramble his way out of the cab. We were completely stopped, stable and parked. Being extremely drunk does interesting things to one's hand-eye coordination, and ones equilibrium.
Mister C may have experienced my cab spinning around like a tea-cup at Disneyland.
I didn''t care. I didn't want his money. I didn't want anything but his absence.
After a few moments he blessed me with this and I left the scene.
The ride was $22.64 on the meter. I reported it as a "No Go". You report a no go when you get to the location and the fare decides they didn't want a cab after all.
I threw away a twenty-two dollar fare because the drunk guy antagonized me that badly.
I drove away and fumed. I dislike this part of driving a taxi cab at night.
-*-
Then I was dispatched to "Thumpers" a Bar on Francis, to pick up Ms D.
Ms D piled into my cab with her boyfriend, a soldier a month back in the U.S from Iraq.
He was drunk but stated that there would be no puking, since I wasn't porpising up and down 100 feet at a time, dropping flares or making sharp random turns to avoid shoulder launched missiles.
I had to point out that should someone fire a shoulder launched missile at us, we were through, because I hadn't packed any flares for such a contingiency.
Ms D and her friend happily burbled away on the trip about the judgement errors of someone named L. They took little notice of the route I drove and were friendly the whole time.
the Tip Ms D gave me was out of scale to the trip and made up for the amount of money I personally had lost on Mr C.
-*-
A little later I was dispatched to "The Press" a bar on Grand Avenue near the Hospital.
The Bartender had called for a cab. M and D were both severely drunk.
M was about 6' 5" and about 140 lbs. He answered questions with wth a vague and lost look of incomprehension.
I observed, while trying to load M, and discover his destination, that his vocabulary amounted to two phrases. "I'm drunk." and "Fuck you."
So when I asked him his destination, M replied with a vague, lost and uncomprehending look. I pointed out that it was very difficult for a cab to get to a destination unless that destination is described.
M replied "I'm drunk."
The Bartender shoved 20.00 into my hands (Not that he had to work hard at that.) assuring that his friends had a ride home instead of trying to drive drunk.
That being settled, now the question was "Where?"
"I'm drunk."
D, meanwhile, spoke happily, if vaguely, about a restaraunt he was opening somewhere, and how he wanted D to manage this.
"Okay." M said. He wasn't drunk enough to cost himself a job.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"I'm drunk."
Eventually it was decided that D and M would inflict themselves on M's sister.
We began driving in that direction.
Then D, being a gentleman, decided to call M's sister and let her know she was about to have house guests.
She didn't answer. B spent time speaking loudly to her voice mail.
I gently pointed out that it was 3:20am. I didn't add that sane people were abed.
In time, B stumbled over this himself.
This caused another round of "So where are we going?"
Eventually it was decided that we'd drop B and M at B's house.
"You wanna crash at my place?"
"I'm drunk."
"You can sleep on the couch."
"Fuck you."
I dropped D and M off and they staggered into B's house. Hopefully their hangovers won't be as bad as they were drunk.
-*-
As a working cab driver, I'd like to urge everyone who likes to drink as a form of relaxation, or perhaps as an expression of profound personal problems,
Please be so kind as to write down a place where you wouldn't mind coming to in the morning (Be realistic, please.) on a sticky note or three by five card and store that on your person.
It will save so much trouble if you just hand a card with an address on it to your cab driver, as opposed to making demands for random, impoosible turns and feeling like you're being robbed if you don't get them,
Or instead of randomly innappropriate statements, devoid of any context or practical purpose.
Big tips are okay. Ms D. can always get a ride from me. Mr C is no longer welcome in my taxi cab.
-*-
Monday 03, August 2009
Well, that was quick, too. Noticing a pattern here? Today I was let go from Arrow Cab.
I am reassessing where I am at and how to cope with that.
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