Tag Archives: Kicker

The rest of it, sort of

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Here’s the rest of what’s happened in the cab the last couple of days.

Thursday

  •  Got another call from the South Austin Hospital.  I get there, and there’s this woman there with 5 girls, and a baby in her arms.  It’s about to start raining, so I help them all get in the car and off we go. The eldest of the girls, who can’t be older than 9, hands me a utility bill and says to me in broken English “we’re going here” as she’s pointing to the address.  I start speaking Spanish, and change the radio station to one of the Spanish language stations in town and the mood in the car changes from very somber and nervous to a very relaxed and comfortable mood.  I don’t know how to explain it, but suddenly they all felt more comfortable with riding in the cab and we had a pleasant ride to their home.  I guess they were nervous about the ride, and my speaking Spanish just made them feel better about leaving the hospital.
  • After it started raining, I picked up these hotties from a restaurant downtown.  They were going to a club downtown, so it was a short ride.  On the way over, we start talking and they ask me what’s the best way to catch a cab at 2 a.m. in Austin.  I told them the best way, was to be friends with a cab driver and call him to come get you.  They seem amazed at my answer.
  • I had an interesting conversation with a guy that wanted to be a cab driver.  He wanted to know, just how much he could pimp out his cab.  Could he put 22s on it? Could he put LCD screens in the back of the head rests? Could he put a DVD player, an Xbox, satellite TV, etc.   I dunno where he’s gonna get the money to do all that, but there’s nothing in the contract that says that you can’t do all those things to your cab.
  • I get a dispatch to go pick up some people from Midnight Rodeo, which as you can imagine is a kicker bar.  Anyway, the dispatch said that my customers were being escorted by the police and that the police called for the cab.  Not a good omen.  I get there, and these 4 Irishmen get into the car.  They’re all talking shit to each other, which makes me think that they got into a fight or something.  Turns out, they asked the police officer to call a cab for them since they didn’t know the number.  They were amazed at how everyone must’ve driven home drunk.  They were also surprised that there wasn’t a line of cabs waiting at the bar to pick people up when the bar closed.  Funny.  They were surprised that I knew that they were in town for training, what they were training for and who they worked etc.  I made an educated guess and was right all around.
  • The last folks, were these guys that got dropped off at the wrong hotel, and waited for over an hour for another cab (me) to come back out and take them to the right one.  Dunno why they got out at the wrong hotel in the first place, but what happened happened.

Friday

Was a no show day.  I had, I kid you not, 12 no shows.  People call for cabs, you show up, but there’s no customer there.  That’s a no show.  You’re out money, time and effort.  Anyway, here’s the deal.

  • Dudes came to Austin from New Orleans to party.  Now, does anyone else see something not quite right with that?
  • I took these really scary looking mescans home to the east side.  They were scary looking and I was extremely happy to get them out of the cab.  The last one of them out of the car actually started sticking his hand in through the crease in the back seat, saying he was making sure that he didn’t leave anything behind and then started sticking his paws into the pockets that are on the back of the front seats.  I told him he didn’t put anything in there and to get the fuck out of the car.  He gave me a dirty look, stuck his dirty, stinky paws into the pocket again, and then got out of the car.
  • Oh yeah, earlier in the evening, I drove this really nice couple around while they decided on a place to go.  They finally asked me where I thought they should go.  They wanted someplace to go where they could smoke and have a beer.  I took them to “The Gingerman” and they seemed elated at my choice.

All in all, this was a long night, with a lot of no shows.  Memorial day weekend, is not shaping up to be a winner.

Post that can’t wait

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That’s right folks, this post cannot wait until after I sleep for fear that I may forget something. This night, was weird. It was slow as all Wednesdays are wont to be but it was certainly not lacking entertainment value.

The first passenger, was really upset that she had to wait for 2 hours for her cab.  Apparently, the computers were down just before I started working, and hers was one of the trips that was left hanging in the ether.

She wanted me to give her a discount because she had to wait for so long.  Here’s the kicker, in the 2 hours that she waited, she could’ve easily walked the distance she was travelling and back.

Then, there were the two guys I picked up at HEB, with I shit you not, 3 cart fulls of groceries.

They had something like 10 gallons of milk, 15 loaves of bread and so on and so forth.  It took them a good 5 minutes to load up the car, and I do mean load up the car.  The trunk was full, and they ended up having bags with them in the back seat as well as having to put some bags in the front seat.

We get to their apartment, and I’m thinking it’s going to take them awhile to unload the car, but no!  From out of nowhere come the “Tamil Tigers” meaning, about 15 guys come out from the wood works and unload the car in a snap.

If I had to guess, and I do, I would say that it was these 2 guy’s turn to go buy groceries for them all and all these guys are living in a 2 bedroom apartment paying something like $10 a month in rent.

OK, maybe I’m exaggerating about the rent, but I’m sure they all live in the same place.

The most interesting group of the night, were these two ladies that I picked up on 6th street.  At first, they’re wanting to go to either a karaoke place or a gay bar.

Nothing wrong with either choice, except that I don’t know where there is a karaoke bar downtown.  The rest of their party are in a different cab, so when they get into my car they say “follow that cab!”

After driving around for a bit, one person gets out of the other cab, and comes over to my cab.

Turns out, this lady is one of my original passenger’s mom, and she wants to go to a country place.

Off we go to Dallas night club, where I drop them off and promise to come get them later.

Well, later comes around, and they’re hungry and drunk.

Two of them want Jack in the box, and the other one wants Whataburger.

During the traipse to the drive thrus, one of them shares that she’s married, has 3 kids and was out back making out with some random dude from the bar.  After that, the mom, says she’s horny and wants to go to a sex store.

Off we go to the Megaplexxx.

The daughter wants the mom to buy her a toy, because she hasn’t had any in over a month and her fingers just aren’t doing the trick.

I waited for them and by the time all is said and done, the third lady is the only one that buys something.  She bought something called an iBuzz, which is a vibrator adaptor for the iPod.  Crazy shit.

OK, that’s all for now.  When I wake up, I’ll proof read this post and make any corrections and clarifications that I think are necessary.  I just had to post this while it was fresh in my memory.

Catch up post

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OK, so I haven’t been keeping up with my posts about my passengers from the day before, sorry about that.  Here’s a catch up post about that:

  • I picked up a Katrina survivor form the adult video store and took him home.  It was an expensive ride since he was way south and his apartment was on the north side of town.  The weird thing about it, is that this guy was telling me about how it really was in the superdome, and the things that he saw in the water floating and the kicker that he had never “known no woman”.  This guy was in his 40s and could very well be the oldest living virgin.
  • I also took some folks from 6th street out to XTC, which is an “all naked” strip joint in town, this was all in the same day.  Definitely a sex worker day.
  • There were the sorority girls that I picked up and payed me with an expired voucher.  As I was calling their attention to the voucher, they started running away and one of them tripped and busted her nose.  There is such a thing as justice.
  • I’ve taken a bunch of strippers to work, and also picked up a bunch of hookers from their job sites and taken them home.
  • One day, I picked up this really young looking girl from her house.  She had her daughter and her sister with her.  This girl couldn’t have been older than 16, anyway, a few days late I went and picked her up again.  This time, the baby daddy was with them too and they all reaked of pot.  They smelled so strongly that I had to roll down my window and was getting a headache from the smell.  I feel bad for the baby.