My first fare this Friday evening was a woman who works for a warehouse, right next to where my ride-share lives. It's not a big fare, but she takes the (city-subsidized) taxi home 5 days a week. I gave her my ride-share's number so she could call him directly. He could pick her up at the end of his day, and this small fare could really add up over time.
I picked the next fare up at a bar. The tension between the couple was palpable for most the ride - the lady was not happy, for unknown reasons. I caught something about them having cats, so I asked what colors they were. One is black, the other tiger-striped. The black one's name is 'Raisin'.
The tension instantly melted when the conversation was shifted to their beloved cats. Raisin named himself.
My third fare remembered me from the night I had the sprinter. In literature this is known as 'foreshadowing'.
Poll.
More Couples
The next fare was another couple switching bars. They were slightly inebriated, and friendly. Gallagher's, at 7th St. and Union Hills, supposedly has good shrimp tacos, fyi.
I found the next woman at WalMart. She'd been waiting for a long time because someone else had taken the first cab that was sent for her. This was quite fortunate for me, because this fare was certainly much better than a random Walmart shopper going home.
This woman's address isn't on a lot of GPS maps, so she catches her cabs at WalMart. She's from Acupulco, Mexico, and was going to the Desert Ridge with her Indian (country, not native american) friend, who we had to go pick up first. She talked about ex-husband problems.
The next were a pair of graduate students. One was from Samoa, the other... might've been Indian too. The Samoan was a talker. His grandpa was a U.S. sailor in the pacific war, who impregnated a samoan girl before disappearing. Grandma already had 5 kids... They don't know anything about the sailor.
His M.S. degree is in software engineering, while his friend was finishing a PhD in civil engineering. His next stop is Hawaii, so he can be close to the water.
First trip through the drive-through
I thought establishments that serve alcohol had to serve food until closing, but apparently this is not the case. I picked up another couple at the Skeptical Chemist, and their first stop was at the McDonald's drive through. Yuck. She got a "Squinky" happy meal toy, which you can apparently get without a happy meal.
The next fare was a woman who was going to baby-sit her drunk boyfriend - score one for sober women. I think the boyfriend had gone out drinking with his friend who is getting divorced.
Yet Another wasted female
Darlene was supposed to get in my cab, but her bar friends didn't think she was in any condition to take care of herself, and they canceled on me. I asked them to call the company to cancel, but she dropped her phone, and someone coughed up $2 to cover my cost.
The next couple had been waiting quite a while outside the bar before I got to them - there must've been a glitch in the system, because the fare should NOT have been offered to me. They asked to go through the Jack-In-The-Box drive through. Yuck. I later learned they weren't actually a couple, just brother-and-sister.
The Fake-Drunk Sprinter
Should've been more suspicious of this one. Picked him up at the Shell station on 7th st, in a reasonably-good area. Scrawny guy gets in. I didn't have a name because the cab order was placed by the station clerk, so I asked. Darby said he was from Louisiana, and did underwater welding. Said he didn't have any money, with him, and asked if it was okay that he paid when we got to the location, that he'd been ditched by his drinking friends. "you don't seem very drunk", "I am very drunk". Yeah, right.
He didn't really know the area, and we finally found the location he was looking for. He said he'd be back, but I stopped the car and opened the door, like I was going to follow him inside. This put fear in his little heart, and he sprinted. He jumped the fence and disappeared. I hurled epithets after him. I don't mind giving the occasional free ride, but only to people who are honest with me, or who have the intention of paying (ref: drunk indian, charity fare). Maybe he was on meth - there was a red sore on his face. ?
Other cabbies have told me about waiting and waiting for their passengers to come back to pay their fares. I guess it's something to make them run for their lives.
An Alcoholic woman at the E.R.
I found this couple at the same John C. Lincoln as before (guess I haven't visited the other one yet). She's an alcoholic, and said she went to the E.R. because it felt sorta like alcohol poisoning. Her heavy drinking started last year sometime, and had something to do with her almost-ex-husband committing suicide. I suggested she switch to jello shots.
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