Welcome Sign

You have probably seen me at the airport, hanging around the arrivals area, holding a sign showing my customer's name. I might be tall or short; skinny, muscular or portly; smoothly dressed or somewhat rumpled. The likelihood is that I am older rather than young, grey-haired more than colored, measured more than peppy. I am overwhelmingly male, glued to my cellphone and almost always tired.

The driving job isn't my first choice. I might have a buddy in the business who needed some help one weekend...and I stayed. It's possible that I saw the potential in a buoyant economy and bought a limousine with a down payment and a dream. Retirement might have bored me rigid, and the idea of some extra money (and tips!) appealed to me (and my wife.) Or I could enjoy the driving, the hours, the observation of human nature, the variety, and just not being stuck indoors enough to want to make it a long-term job.

After around two years you start to think you've seen it all. That's a mistake. There will always be new ways for people to surprise you; incredible, unbelievable behaviour that will make great tales for the telling. But somewhere in there you begin to notice patterns, to recognize situations as echoes of days past - this kind of misunderstanding is best resolved in a particular way, that type of customer is actually asking for somemething different than he or she verbalizes, and we both know it. Experience begins to guide you when uncertainty looms.

Mostly I like people, and want to help them through. My temperature might rise when conflict arises, but I know that it's overwhelmingly likely to be in the customer's mind than in the way I carried their bag. I probably dream of a week of early to bed and breakfasts there too, but start to miss the road after two days of that. The money sucks, The Boss acts weird, nobody tips anymore, these cars aren't running right, the cops hate me, I'm hungry, Starbucks sucks, I miss my family....and yet I'm still here, in the monkey suit, holding up my sign, looking for Mr Smith.


Also published at The 941.

Fame

I'm famous!

The local alternative paper (read: lefty haven) publishes my posts under a (different) pseudonym. This week, I'm in print.

Yay me.

You Too

I'm sorry. If you don't know that the lead singer of U2's name is "Bonn-Oh", not "Bone-Oh" you are not real fans. Fuck me. Dilettantes in pop culture make me wanna puke.

Sorry sir, may I open the champagne for you?

You see the kind of dual life I lead, being appalled most of the time, sickenly sycophantic the next. You'd be the same if you were surviving on tips.

The night of the U2 concert in Tampa was long and messy. Every limousine within 150 miles was out, and the other 69,000 people drove their cars. Raymond James stadium, home of an amateur football team called the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was chock-a-block full for the night, and that was just the performers' egos.

My people were early mid-aged lawyer types, overfed and undermannered. Snark aside, they were reasonably polite and not at all a problem, but who wants to hear about mild-mannered Richy Riches daring to live large at a Rock Concert for the night?

However, one of their number was a trouble-maker from the start. As I later discovered, he was an ex-fighter of some sort, the kind with a giant body, peanut nuts and dino-brain. Better living through chemistry, apparently. Why anyone pays to see artificially-grown men bash each other is beyond me, but I bore the weight of his 'roid rage that night. Except when he was being nice. And there he goes morphing into a prick again.

Oaves suck.

Where was I? Oh, that's right. Channelside in Tampa, after the U2 show, with a drug-addled lunatic and his nouveau riche friends. Whatever. Another show, another dollar.

Alcoholica

Metallica played the St Pete Times Forum Saturday night, a giant thrill for local metal fans. The hard rockin' hall-of-famers aren't familiar to me, so I figured it would be best to be prepared for anything when I drove eight die-hards to the concert.

One lesson one learns quickly in the limo game is the ancient one of not judging a book by its cover. My customers for the night might have looked like well-used paperbacks, but who the hell am I to judge? They were polite and friendly, and although I couldn't figure out just why their teenage children were coming, seemed like first-rate parents too.

Look, it's easy to be a snob about these things. Metal bands are a mystery to me, but then Scarlatti is probably a joke to them, unless there's an Italian hair band of that name floating about the place. Customers are customers, and as I say to The Boss, they all get the best treatment until their behaviour dictates otherwise.

Tampa is a dozy kind of place, with many one-way streets, and evidence of bored uninterest from the city fathers (and female mayor) that a clean sweep would rectify. Public performance venues like the SPTF are used all the time, and yet the organization around parking, traffic flow and (especially!) limousines is abysmal. The cops do their job as well as you'd expect, but the feeling one is left with is that administrators could care less what happens when the sun sets and they're comfortably ensconced somewhere else having dinner with a lobbyist.

That's a whole other issue.

A driving gig to Tampa for a concert like this is about as good as it gets, because everyone's in a good mood. They're also deaf and swaying when they come out, but that's fine too; I just turn up the heat, and they're all asleep by the time we've hit I-75 southbound.

The real fun lies in the time between when the show ends and the customers find me. Metallica girls are given to taking their tops off, I understand, an outstanding turn of events. When the sweaty crowd is melting out of the arena, there's plenty of eye-candy to keep a bloke occupied, even if they're with scary looking dudes.

They're probably shit-scared of my tie.

Secret Service

There I was, in the restaurant carpark, waiting for my customer to finish dinner when an SUV sandwich arrived - four Suburbans between two cop cruisers. There was no squealing of tires or blaring of sirens, but it was clear that Something Important was happening. "Huh", I thought, Sarasota's biggest moment in three months might just be happening before my eyes.

Out sprung a dozen or more steely-type guys in dark suits, all looking at what security people call "The Perimeter." (Note my hip lingo.) I was on the dead side of The Perimeter, unable to see what was happening at the restaurant's entrance. Apparently Someone Important alighted one of the monster vehicles and was escorted in with a few hangers-on. All I saw was the back of a guy's head, a guy with white hair.

Frankly, I was miffed. Here was I, sitting in my Town Car in the forecourt, chatting on my cellphone, and the tuff guys barely gave me a look. I could have been a nut with a gun on a mission, deserving of a bit o' roughing up. Actually, the fact they ignored me is testimony to their judgement, because A) I'm not a starfucker, and B) my friend on the phone was way more interesting than some B-lister with over-the-top stalker protection.

After a while, I told my friend what had happened. She speculated who was likely to have a police escort and heavy duty security. We concluded it was unlikely to be anyone Hollywood, nor anyone businessy. I thought of Bill Gates, but I know he's very low-key. My best guess was Governor Crist.

Eventually, I got out of the car to stretch a take a walk. A television camera crew and their cub reporter argued over sightlines. Bottled water came out for the suits. Restaurant customers (including mine) were nowhere to be seen, apparently held hostage inside. Good for me; I was on hourly pay. A local cop stood nearby, so I asked the question. Suddenly it all made sense.

My clues to my friend on the phone were as follows: The number 42. Ladies' knickers hitting the floor all over the SunCoast. Politician. White hair. Left of center. Unsure of the meaning of the word 'is'.