• I picked up this old lady from HEB on Slaughter and Manchaca.  This lady was wheezing the whole time.  I helped her load her bags into the car, then I carried the bags to the door, etc.  She even had this big ass watermelon that must’ve weighed 1/5th of her body weight.  Anyway, in the end she forgot her purse in the car, and I had to come back from north Austin to south Austin to give the purse back to her son.
• There was this nearly blind lady that I picked up from the IRS.  I picked her up after I picked up the old lady that I just talked about.  She was actually the one that found the purse in the back seat.  When she found it she said “You have to be honest to work at this place.” I had to bite my tongue in order to not respond with comments on the Infernal Revenue Service, besides, mah hunnay works part time at the IRS.
• Talked about old school drinking games with this one couple that had been out at the lake all day.  Ah, the college daze of playing drinking games to the smurfs and to other TV shows.
• Took this one guy home that was on the phone the whole time.  He appeared to be having a pretty intense conversation, and then I heard him say “well, if you’re going to kill the dragon, you have to use your sword with the plus 20 against dragons.”
• But, the one that takes the cake, by far, happened right during the prime time.  These 5 kids want to get in, I tell them I can only take 4 people.  They say they’ll make it worth my while, I politely explain that the decision is not mine, but that it’s a city ordinance. After some hemming and hawing, they say that they’ll take another cab, I say fine, take another cab.  As 2 of them are getting out, one of them calls me a “douche bag.”  Well, I asked the remaining passengers if that guy called me a douche bag, they say “yeah, no wait, he meant me…”  Too late, I kick them all out.  I roll another 10 feet and load some other people.  A full 30 minutes later, I drove by where I left them, and they were still there trying to catch a cab.  I should’ve rolled down the window and yelled out “who’s the douche bag now?” but I didn’t.  I just got pleasure from the fact they were still there.

When I pull up to the scene, I could sense the relief from the officers at my arrival. They all tell me to go to the front cruiser.  As I pull up to the cruiser, I see the cause of the commotion. I cannot tell you what kind of car it was. It looked like an accordion. The driver’s door was off, the airbags had deployed. There were all kinds of fluids everywhere and a door was a few feet away from the frame of the car.

When the officer in the lead cruiser sees me, she gets out and opens the back passenger door. This guy gets out and casually strolls over to my cab.  Now, I’m really not sure what to think.  The officer comes over to my side, asks me if I speak Spanish (I do) because my passenger only speaks Spanish and whether I know where_______ street is because that’s where this guy is going.  As we pull away from the scene, I ask the guy what happened, and he tells me.

Turns out, he was at home, on his phone when his cousin pulls up in his car with a friend of his and tells him to get in.  Not really sure of where they’re going, he gets in the back seat of the car and keeps talking on the phone.  At some point, he realizes that his cousin is drunk, almost at the same time, he asks his cousin to slow down  since he’s driving “kinda fast.”  He tells me that they are going well over 100 miles an hour when they go through the traffic light eastbound under the freeway.  Just so you know, the posted speed limit is 35 mph in this area.  He tells me that as they started to go around the uphill turn just after the intersection his cousin lost control of the car.  They flipped over several times, took down 7 trees (they were small trees) and came to a stop where I found him.  He says his cousin was unconscious, as was the passenger in the front seat.  He says he got checked out by EMS and refused medical service, the front seat passenger regained consciousness and was taken away by EMS.  His cousin, the driver, was pronounced dead at the scene.

I was flabbergasted.  I was also amazed that this guy walked away from the accident.  The car was unrecognizable, all the tires were flat and not a single body panel was undamaged.  Simply amazing.  This guy was so deadpan about what happened, I think he was in shock.

I think the lesson is: “don’t drink and drive”.  Followed by the equally poignant “don’t get in a car with a driver that has been drinking”.

The other group, were these guys that got in at the La Quinta on 183 and I-35.  They too wanted to go to the Hilton downtown.  On our way over there, they start talking about dating, about making posters, about how it was cool that people were open to dating like that.  They then started talking about bones and carbon and then it became clear that they were not talking about dating in the traditional sense, but rather they were talking about scientific dating.  Lo and behold, these guy were all archeologists talking about different methods for dating samples.

Anyway, the most quote worthy event, was this one guy that got into the car in front of the Continental Club.  There were already 3 people in the back seat, so he had to get in front.  I had all my stuff in the front seat, so I was moving some of it off from there when the guy just plops his ass down on the seat next to me before I managed to clear everything off it.  As he’s sitting down he says:

“Don’t worry, I have a small ass.”

What a freak.