Taxi cab or mental institute cell?
This rant has been a long time coming.
I have alot of sympathy for the average cabbie. Shit hours, shit pay, putting up with drunks etc. I always tip, try to keep my early morning cod shit to a minimum, and bite my tongue when something is said that I strongly disagree with. However sometimes a man cann be pushed too far.
Scene one: 12months ago
I had just flown back to the sunny coast for a close friends funeral, cutting short my snowboard trip. Now I didn't have to work at this stage for a couple of months and so had a wicked pink dye job through my hair. This day I got up at 5am, caught the airport shuttle to brissie airport and jumped in a cab to head to my mums about 10km away then headed down to the golld coast for the funeral.
As soon as I gave the directions this fuck wit started whinging that he had cued for 3hrs at the airport and now he was only getting a $15 fare. I bit my lip for 5min of his moan then I erupted.
"Shut the fuck up! I have been up since 4.30am,I am heading to a funeral, then got to head back to the sunny coast to take my daughter to hospital for surgery. I'm sorry I'm not heading to fucking sydney so pull the fuck over and head back to that 3hr cue!" ....or words to that effect. I hopped out, left the passeger door wide open, and crossed the road to hail another cab straight away.
Scene 2: 10days ago
Having spent a quiet night drinking with Pop Popovich I call a cab to take me back to my crib from his house. Now first up I felt sorry for the guy because he pulled over 2-3 times to check the referdex. By the 4th time I asked him to stop the meter and I would show him on the map (I had no idea where I was in melbourne). By the 5th time the last cigarette I smoked at pop's was making me paranoid and so I asked if he knew where he was going now. By now we were surrounded by forest trees, no street lights and finally we hit a dead end facing large metal gates that were padlocked. Paranoid Max snaps and calls Pop just to explain that if he hasn't heard from me in 24hr, that I loved him and he can have my porno collection. "don't worry my friend" says the cabbie.
"Don't worry? Fuck me what else am I ment to think, you have taken me to a perfect spot for a mugging"
He then offered for me to drive and he will navigate!! So who pays for the fare mate?
Finally, 1hr later (Kew to Watsonia) I reach home. Now he tries to haggle the price of the fare cos he forgot to put the meter back on. I just laughed, tossed him $20 and my parting words were,
"If I ever have to sit that close to you again for a hour it had better be at the football".
It took about 2hr to get to sleep that night.
Scene 3: Monday morn
Catch a cab to the airport at 5am and handover $50 for the $38 fare. The bloke goes off that he can't change a $50 because it is the begining of his shift. I just smile sweetly and explained that I he had to take me to the city and I handed him a $20, he would still need to give me $12 change. Fuckers! He just wanted me to use eftpos at $3.50 surcharge. Normally I wouldn't care so much but after my previous cabbie tour I have had enough.