Millionaire's Club

Technorati: Eurotrash, Gold Digger, Millionaire's Club, Limousine Life.



Mr DeCerenzo (name changed to protect the innocent) and his lady companion arrived on time, always a bonus for the humble chauffeur. He had that look European men pull off so well, scruffy yet elegant. Somehow they can mismatch colours and styles and still look chic. It must be in the Campari.

She looked American trying to be European. A tiny woman, she was barely bigger than the average fifteen-year old. Surreptitiously examining her from behind, the smallness of her legs fascinated me. Did she shop in the children's section to find clothes that fit?

There was something not quite right about the interaction between them. She was too proprietorial over him, fussing and being unrelaxed. Her face said she was forty, but her brittleness told another story.

I asked The Boss about them, hoping to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. It turns out he was a former tennis pro, and found her here.

The Millionaire's Club. Really. It's no joke! Apparently Mr DeCerenzo met a few dozen women within six months of joining, all transported from various airports and hotels by Bossman's limousines. This one has been around for a year, living with him in his golf course McMansion.

A dating website for gold-diggers. Thank goodness for the internet.

Technorati: Eurotrash, Gold Digger, Millionaire's Club, Limousine Life.

Two Cokes and a Turkey.

So many limousine stories to tell, and so little time to write. Here's a seasonal tale:

Jim is The Boss's best customer. We drive him to area airports, pick him up from those same airports, take him to meetings all over Florida, and transport his local employees to where they need to be.

The Boss is kept on his toes keeping up, as changing flights to get him home ten minutes earlier is nothing for Jim. He married a younger woman a few years ago, and when he's not working, wants to maximize his time with her. This is a man with clear priorities.

From a chauffeur's point of view, he's a delight. He'll tell you what he wants, and leave you to do it. In the back of the sedan, he works on his computer, or talks on the phone without the self-consciousness some folks have. He trusts us to be discreet, and his trust is rewarded.

This raises the larger question of the power gradient. I am critically aware of being a servant of my customers, that my job is to take orders, drive safely, and speak when spoken to. Jim's good because he gets that relationship. We both know where we stand, and life is therefore simple for both of us. Some clients don't have this skill.

Driving him to Orlando Airport a while ago, he asked if I had a Coke in the cooler. I always carry bottled water, but not exotica like fizzy drinks. The next time I collected him, I made sure I had a couple of Cokes on ice. This, as you can imagine, made him very happy. He spent half an hour merrily sipping and burping, a good sign from an otherwise gruff man.

Naturally, I make sure I have his drink on board all the time now. He's always gracious in saying thanks, and I told him last time that he's always looked after us, so I'm very happy looking after him. It's such a small thing, and yet it makes him so pleased.

I think this is because he spends most of his time ensuring his employees can do as well as possible. When someone shows the smallest consideration for him, it stands out, being so unusual.

So when a Christmas hamper arrived this week, with compliments from Jim and (wife) Sarah, it shouldn't have been a surprise. Only two drivers were so blessed, from a total of ten who had driven him during the year. This is a man who knows how to treat his servants.

Tangents: Let Them Drink Diet Coke, Hampers, Chauffeur Family Tree.

Technorati: Power Gradient, Coke, Hamper, Consideration.

Miniature horseshit

When a limousine customer tells you that they'll be "the easiest folks you've ever had in the car" or that if I "stick with us, you'll have a great time, we can have a party" they're lying.

The opposite is always true:

In Case # 1 they will be the most demanding arseholes you've ever met. The limousine will end up being a pigsty, they'll use every glass, break a few, leave footprints on the ceiling and barf in the champagne bucket.

In Case # 2 they will be self-important know-nothings, lording it over all and sundry demanding that their chauffeur be a mind reader, all the while calling him "Wimbot" and demonstrating their world knowledge comes from the National Enquirer.

It was a bunch of #2 people on Saturday. Off we went on a jaunt to a town where a Miniature Horse auction was the star turn. These folks owned a few dozen of these critters, having been awarded a top ten prize for one of them.

Nineteen hours. That's how long I was with these supposedly yippee! party people, twelve of which were spent watching endless variations of the same thirty-inch-tall chaff-muncher being paraded around. The auctioneers had never seen such "purrty fullees" nor "manly-luuking stally-ons" in their en-tire born days, which made me wonder, because an awful lot of these prize lots were passed in at a high bid of $200.

Attempting some show of interest, I asked what one used a miniature horse for. To show, came the answer. Oh, in that case who is buying here today? Showers and breeders. I see, so the organization that awards prizes is...run by breeders to make sure there's a market for their product.

So these animals serve no purpose whatsover other than to expand the ego of the owner when they are judged as better than a few others, and provide money for the breeders.

I didn't say it, but that's the gist of things.

After spending a few thousand on new midget-nags, and showing off their limousine, they went for dinner at Subway and dancing at some gay bar. I declined the invitation to go with.

A day standing in horseshit contemplating miniature horses is plenty of time to reflect on one's life, and note the metaphors all around.


Technorati: Miniature Horses, Bogans, Chaff, Subway.

The Hooker Complex

Saturday night was a fat time here in the Tropical Midwest, what with all the Hallowe'en parties and onset of bearable weather.

I didn't partake of the party side of things, except as an observer from my limousine driver's perch. The Boss gave me the prime run of the night - one of his golfing buddies wanted an eleven seater for three of his mates and seven wenches. I knew we were in for a big night when they needed a wheelbarrow to cart all the booze from the house.

My town has only three or four places for the kind of frolics that involve belly shots, women in (mock) S&M gear and Columbian Beach Sand, if you get my drift, so everyone under the age of 30 was at one or other of them. Man, were there some hot looking babes strutting around, making a mockery of my notable failure in the chick dept. As one of the other limo drivers opined, where the Sam Adams are these women during the day? Are they all vampires snoozing in a coffin?

Another Floridian mystery - do all the ninety year old women with one foot in the grave take a step out and lose seventy years when the sun crashes into Mexico each night?

Hanging around waiting, I was approached by three couples (tanked) looking for their cars which had "disappeared", two young guys wanting to know what it was like driving around "rich arseholes" and one youth looking to urinate on my limousine.

Just joking doood, he said walking headlong into a dumpster.


Technorati: Hookers, Rich Arseholes, Drunks give bigger tips, Limousine Life.

Sequins and Heels

I could lie to you and write that I drove the Homecoming Queen on Saturday night. Alas the truth is more prosaic. How about five fifteen year-old girls?

Yes, that was my fate, a night of giggling behind the privacy screen, hooting at pedestrians and what felt like slam dancing. At one point I swore there was a herd of kangaroos back there.

From my one-night experience Homecoming is no more than an excuse for dressing up and going out. Not that there was any hard-core partying going on in any of The Boss's limos.

Unsure of what to expect, I chatted with him beforehand. The problem, of course, is booze. If any of the under-age crowd (21 here in Florida) is caught drinking in the car, the driver is liable too. On nights like last Saturday the place is lousy with cops, apparently able to stop and search on the flimsiest of evidence. Whatever happened to probable cause? Oh, the young man baring his buttocks whilst holding on to a full champagne flute. Fair enough then, officer.

None of that worried me, because the young hostess's parents were first rate. Obliged to explain the drinking in the car problem to the father as we completed the paperwork, he was with the program, having made it clear to his daughter and friends that there were to be no (illegal) shenanigans.

Off we went to dinner followed by an hour of touring the hot-spots of our coastal town, then to the dance at the science and technology museum. Surprisingly, the parents were there to meet us, a canny move I thought, making sure of good behaviour with a surprise check.

After the dance, and with heels in hand, they went to the designated sleep-over house. I was finished by 1:00 after cleaning the smallish mess in the limousine. Easy.

So that's Homecoming. I learned that fifteen year-old girls might be close to complete women physically, but they're really still just kids. I learned that the hot fashion this year is sequined dresses, and the hot colour is turquoise. I also learned that the best asset a kid has is two good parents, who might indulge them sometimes, but do their best to guide them through the thicket of teenage years.

Those two get my prize of the night.

Oh, and turquoise sequins will be found in the back of that limo forever, I'm certain.

Technorati: Homecoming, Sequins, Heels, Parents.

Totty on the side

In a Top-Secret, for-your-eyes-only mission last night, I discovered that Harry has a little piece of arse on the side.

Harry is my boss at Harry's Limousines, where we convey the rich and expense-accounted around this here piece of Florida swamp. He called me mid-afternoon, with specific details. This is a direct quote:

Okay, so the job is collecting a lady friend of mine - if you can read between the lines - take her to a restaurant, and drive her home when she's done.

There was to be no record of the trip. He left an envelope with cash for me, tip included, and I couldn't even refill the car with gas when done, because that would leave a paper trail as well. All very clandestine.

Harry is 57 years old and a grandfather. He's a good guy, always ready with a story, although he does express himself with passion, meaning that he shouts a lot. I have noticed that his hair has been professionally cut of late, with some blonde added to the spiky tips. Now I know why.

Between that first call and me picking up his flooze, he called me four times. No kidding, he even called at five minute prior to pickup time to make sure I had found the house.

Look, it's none of my business, and I'm interested only because it's fun to write about. The way he is like an overprotective den mother demonstrates that he is smitten by this woman, completely giddy with something approaching love. He's as moony as a ten year old in the back of the bus, if you read between the cheeks.

Silly man, he's going to get his heart handed to him.

Technorati: Adultery, Top Secret, Clandestine, Limousine Life.

American needs a dress code.

Moonlighting for The Boss's Limousine Service means hanging around airports a lot. Despite the meagre pay, this isn't an imposition; I like airports.

Fear and expectancy are in the faces. Nervousness competes with complete boredom, and happy travellers mix with exhausted travellers. It's an emotion incubator with expensive food.

Mostly I'm a little bit smug, having no fear of missing flights, nor missing luggage, no exasperation at the horror of row 32, seat B which comes fully equipped with a colicky kid in row 32, seat A.

More than anything I notice how poorly people dress. Almost always I'm the best dressed person in the airport, and often in the limousine too.

Don't get me wrong, that doesn't say much. I'm in the regulation driver's uniform: black suit (off the rack), black belt, white (slightly rumpled) cotton-blend shirt and black tie (coffee stains hopefully not visible). I call this style Chauffeur Chic.

Chauffeur Chic means that your trousers are slightly larger than optimum fit because of all the sitting and waiting - believe me, if you're hanging around in Florida in August, you don't want zoot-suit style pants. And the suit jacket is rumpled at back from driving with the thing on, necessary to create the formal atmosphere our clients like.

Notwithstanding the fact that my uniform is how tramps dressed in the thirties, it's the gold standard compared to everyone else there. I shall refrain from describing the nightmare, except to say that middle-aged men who are 100 lbs overweight should wear neither lycra shorts nor Crocs, and especially not together.

What America needs is a dress code.

As the only man within a thousand miles in an ironed shirt and a necktie, I get to criticize.


Technorati: Crocs, Chauffeur Chic, Necktie, Tramp.

Snowbirds

This is the lull before the storm, a period of quiet before the Snowbirds rock into Florida for the winter. It's locals only at the moment, but before long there will be Michiganders doing U-turns all over, and Illinoisans in vast caravanserais of Recreational Vehicles all over I-75.

[Sean Connery in The Hunt for Red October pronounced Recreational Vehicle the best way ever, in that Rrrrrrrussian accent of his, every syllable e nun ci a ted, every R rrrrrrolled.]

The lull means quiet times at The Boss's Limousine service. Last night I did my first job in ages, collecting three youngish Chicagoan women from an area airport. While two argued the point about one of their bags still sitting at O'Hare, I got chatting to the third. (BTW, budget airlines mean budget baggage handling. Why don't you understand you get what you pay for?)

After a while, I realized that her half of the conversation was slightly off-centre, as if she wasn't understanding me. I put it down to flight fatigue, until on our way out to the car I saw that she was wearing hearing aids.

Many moons ago I wrote about imperfections in women, and how attractive they are. Whether that is because it makes them appear vulnerable - or the corollary of that, makes men feel protective - I'm not sure. Either way, there was a noticeable warming of my feeling towards her.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't as if I wanted to chase her romantically, but her minor hearing problem did change my attitude. I even let her smoke in the limo, an indulgence sure to rile The Boss.

Sheesh, I'm a soft touch.





Technorati: Deaf, Snowbirds, Limousine, Indulgence.

TSA - Your government at work

Dr Braithwaite and his wife are becoming fixtures in my travels at Harry's Limousine. He's a retired physician who flies to Houston for chemotherapy every couple of weeks, proof that cancer is an equal opportunity disease. I drove these charming and urbane folks home last night, passing the time with a good-natured discussion about everything from New Zealand green-lipped mussels to the criminality of Senator Edward Kennedy.

Dr Braithwaite was at Haahhhvahhhd when fat Ted was there, and explained to me that when he was caught cheating in 1951 and tossed out, a donation to the university made it all go away. How surprising.

Waiting for their bags at the carousel, our conversation turned to the TSA. The good Doctor, not normally given to cussing, was hot under the collar at the idiocy of airport checks. Taking toothpaste from sick old white men is keeping us safe, apparently.

He's right to be angry, because giving authority to people who would otherwise have none is a sure pathway to making them martinets. It's not the flunkies' fault though; the fault lies with their bureaucratic masters. Political correctness doesn't allow the profiling that would actually add to our security. Arab-looking or Muslim men are obviously the greatest threat, but the folks at TSA aren't allowed to discriminate between a thirty year old Egyptian flying school wash-out and my nice dying doctor.

What this cluster-fuck does is to inconvenience the maximum number of innocent people, and add only marginally to aviation safety. Diversity nuts and lefty PC police, listen up: you will kill us with this idiocy.

Maybe that's your aim.

Dr B drew the obvious conclusion. If you want a universal healthcare system, run by the federal government, consider the TSA, because that's what happens when government runs anything.

As PJ O'Rourke wrote, "If you think healthcare is expensive now, wait until it's free."


Technorati: TSA, Profiling, Healthcare, Muslims.

How to tip.

Noting with no little confusion that I failed to win the Florida Lotto last night (I'm sure there must be a mistake) it's back to earning money the hard way - with tips from my limousine customers.

Moonlighting for The Boss's Limousine Service hasn't been as full of backseat rompers and sticky seats as I had imagined. Mostly it's people in suits working for big companies, successful self-employed types and wealthier than average people coming and going. All but one of these people have been a delight to toil for.

The truth is that the highlight of any trip is the tip. Never having worked for tips before, I'm a little unsure of the protocol, especially with cash. When someone palms me a folded note, I can't resist looking and trying to figure out what denomination it is. The correct way (I think) is to maintain one's gaze at the customer, like a doorman at the Bellagio, and pretend it isn't happening. (Okay, I'm thinking of the movie Casino, where Ginger has all the right people on her side with carefully distributed tips.)

I've been fiddling with the words, and feel that something like Thank you ma'am, that's very generous of you, strikes the right tone. (And can be neatly ironic if it's two bucks for four hours.)

Anyway, with limited observations, this is what I have learned: That nice people, no matter their wealth, will tip generously, and not-so-nice people, no matter their wealth, won't.


Technorati: Tipping, Sticky Seats, Limousines, Casino.

Champers, my butt.

At The Boss's Limousines, we offer a "Champagne Service" - deceptive advertising if ever I've seen it.

Scheduled to provide this premium offering for a couple on an evening dinner run, I asked Bossman what he expected.

Boss: Well, you know, grab a bottle from the fridge, keep it on ice in the car, open it and pour them each a glass.

Me: Should I do this in the forecourt of their hotel, or pull into a gas station?

(I think at this stage The Boss was wondering if I was the man for the job.)

Boss: I don't know, you'll figure it out. Just don't spill anything on the carpet.

(We see where his priorities lie.)

His idea of champagne needs some tweaking. What he wanted me to do was to take a bottle of two-buck spumante rolling around the bottom of the office fridge, and pour that for folks paying $66 bucks an hour for a mini-stretch Cadillac. How embarrassing.

What I actually did was to stop off at the supermarket on the way, spent ten bucks of my own money, and bought a half-decent bottle of Californian methode champenoise. Serving spumante as champagne is fraud, in my book.

The setup for the evening was too cute. Two college-aged daughters had organized an anniversary night out for their parents while they were on vacation down here. All they knew was to be downstairs in their hotel at 6:30, and to go with the flow.

Of course, I was the surprise (lucky, lucky) and with two glasses and bottle in hand, managed to serve them drinks in the lobby without embarrassing either them or me. I left to wait in the car, thankful for no stuff-ups.

The rest of the evening was (as I am learning) pretty standard stuff. I took them to their mystery restaurant (which their daughters had chosen and paid for) hung around, and took them back to their hotel.

Two things made this night a little different. The first is that this couple talked with each other all night. They talked all the way there (thirty minutes) they talked all through dinner (don't ask, I just know) and they talked all the way back. The last I'm guessing, because they did raise the privacy screen for a while, although professional ethics prevent me from speculating about what happened. Okay, if I knew, I would tell you.

But it struck me as refreshing to see a long-married couple still animated by each other after twenty years.

The second good thing was the fifty tip.

Which goes to show that knowing spumante from champagne does have some benefits.


Technorati: champagne, spumante, tips, Wedding Anniversary.

Limousine Life

Eighteen months living here in Geezerland and I still have no social life. None. Florida is a verrrryy strange place, but hey, there are worse places to be.

When a friend in Australia suggested I should get a part time job, I took her advice. I applied for a few things half-heartedly, and some with a little interest, but nothing took my fancy.

I should explain that I normally work from home, by myself, which gives you an idea of the isolation factor. My hours are reasonably flexible, but I was looking for something for late afternoon and evening, and weekends.

Craigslist found me the winning job, when I received an email response to an application I had submitted weeks previously.

So, drum-roll please, your humble blogger now has a part-time job as.........a limousine driver.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Wombat is on the move as a chauffeur, driving the rich and famous - or just plain drunk - around his steamy Florida town. In three weeks of holding doors and hanging around, I've found enough material for a lifetime of blogging, so if nothing else it will be something fun to write about. Lord knows the money's no reward.

Next time you arrive at an airport, and see the poor sap holding up a sign showing his customer's name, think of me. In fact my last pick up had me getting all sorts of weird looks.

But then at least I don't have to go through life being called Mr Rimmer.





Technorati: Limousine, Florida, Rimmer, Town Car.