Yesterday I was going through a box, and found an envelope with some cash. These bills were received in payment from a few of my passengers. I like to keep some cash at home, and prefer crisp bills for my personal bank.
There was a $2 bill, some sequentially-numbered $1's received from the guys who were going home from a strip club. And a pair of sequentially-numbered $5's, wrapped in a piece of paper. The note had an address on the road that surrounds a local mall. Hmm?
Then I remembered her: the passenger who was fired from her new job at Fry's Food because she was using Birth Control. But they didn't know the woman's back-story, and I didn't figure it out until the end of the ride.
This was months ago, when it was just starting to warm up. I remember this fare rather well, but hadn't thought about it until I got this reminder.
Wtg Inside, Plz Go In - D2D NDS AST
The taxi companies' dispatchers had to make the most of a limited number of characters for giving us drivers more information about the person we were supposed to find. I interpreted this fare's abbreviations as being short for "Waiting Inside, Please Go In. Door-to-Door, Needs Assistance". D2D is typically used for old people and unaccompanied children's fares. When people use the store's phone to call for a taxi it usually says that they're waiting outside.
So I went in to the desk. "Did you call for a taxi for someone?" The male employee at desk said the he was "going to let the manager handle this one," and picked up the phone. The front end manager came over and said "our employee is drunk - you're taking her home. How much to [apartment near the mall]?" It was about a mile, so I guessed $8.
He pulled out two new $5 bills with sequential numbers from the register. I gave him a receipt & signed his cash disbursement record. The passenger was walked out, someone from her department saw her off, then the passenger got in.
I could tell she was distraught, and as soon as we drove off she sobbed, "I just ruined my life..."
A few days before I'd picked a woman up from a motel next to Metrocenter. That passenger said, "have you ever been in jail? DON'T GO!" Then I asked the present passenger if she was going to jail. She was not, and agreed that things could definitely be worse. She'd just started working at Fry's a week or two before, claimed that she had not actually had any alcohol that morning, and said that she'd been basically forced to quit.
When we got to her apartment complex I gave her my card. Then I remembered the k5 user who told us about birth control and I thought to ask... "I heard that birth control can really screw with women's moods... Are you on that stuff?" She wailed out, "I'M ON THE NUVARING!", and that she'd just taken it out that morning - whatever that means. She'd started it when she met her boyfriend because she absolutely did NOT want another kid. She'd gained a lot of weight, and was moody as hell. Now she & her boyfriend are fighting, so she probably won't need it for preventing babies much longer anyways.
I spent a few minutes chatting, and she did seem to be much calmer when I departed. She called a day later wondering if she'd left her phone in the cab, and sounded like a totally different person.
I can certainly appreciate women's desire to prevent babies, but I wonder if doctors tell their patients that their birth control prescription might get them fired.
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