Fire and Smoke

Picture Credit.

At a stop light recently I watched as yet another smoker took a final drag and flicked her butt onto the pavement. Judging that there was enough time, I jumped out of the Town Car, picked up the butt and offered it to its owner.

I believe this is yours?

Not so long ago, of course, cars were equipped with ash-trays and cigarette lighters. People used these conveniences for their designed purpose. At an appropriate time and place, the accumulated detritus created by this foul habit most likely ended up in a trash container somewhere, maybe at a gas station. In other words, smokers didn't consider the world one vast ash heap.

Modern manners define the kind of behaviour we non-smokers always admired: Values like not smoking indoors, not smoking while we're eating and not smoking in the car. Unfortunately, even SMOKERS have adopted these precepts, meaning that they've gone rogue, or, in the case of the car, gone on the road.

They're everywhere when you begin to look. Their car window is an eighth of the way down. With each exhalation, the owner aims her breath at the gap, polluting the universe outside instead of the universe inside their car. Every so often the lit coffin nail is held out the window, the ash flicked everywhere, again, but inside the car. And then, at the end of the nicotine hit, the butt is deposited insouciantly everywhere OTHER than the puffer's immediate environs.

It's the same act as the dog owner who refuses to collect her pooch's rancid coils. THEIR world is pristine; OUR world is a toilet.

So I offered the butt-hole litterer her butt back without success. Such language from such a pretty girl. But I think I made my point, if only for this sorry tale.

Just Perfect

Photo credit.

When The Boss calls at 1:30 am, it's never good news. He isn't calling to see if we'd like coffee and a slice of pizza, nor is he calling to tell us what a good job we're doing.

He's calling for one reason only: he's awake, and he's angry.

The usual deal is that I hand the limo company's business card to the customers so they know how to contact us. I try to do this both when I first meet them, AND when I drop them at their first destination.

On one side is the regular phone number; on the other is a space for each individual driver's number. I always hand out this card and POINT OUT to the people that the number to call is the one on the back labeled WOMBAT. Then I beg them NOT to call the number on the front, which, as I explain, calls The Boss.

You can put together the pieces. Drunken/stoned/stupid idiots will dial the number with the biggest print.

At the same time as The Boss is calling I receive two other calls from my Surbuban Gangsta wannabes, demanding that I return to collect them. Having previously explained that I cannot hang around on the street near their club, I ask if they're ALL TOGETHER.

You can get the gist of the answer from the 'click'.

Sigh. Nothing new in all this. Fifteen too many drinks, out of control egos, logic circuits burned out by the desire to get laid - this isn't going to be pretty. Of course when I lob at the front of the club, only a handful of these wankers is there. My backup plan is a parking lot I know of just around the corner, so I head there. It's one way in and out and only as wide a table-tennis table, so it requires a twenty point turn to get pointed the right way, but eventually we're settled, ready to head out.

Then the screaming begins.

Turns out that one of the young 'men' has tainted another of the young men's manhood with a stray drunk comment or two, and they're now bashing the shit out of each other next to Robert's limousine. For a moment I think about it. Then I decide that all I'll get is a large dry-cleaning bill, so I simply watch as these two gentlemen settle matters with honour. Frankly, I wished they'd used duelling pistols...that would have been more interesting.

Eventually the moody brawlers are separated, and we head back. These people are on a fixed release date, remember, having paid cash ahead of time, so I was ready to leave in any case.

We pulled up back at the front door of the bar from which we'd left pretty much on time. I was so glad to have the night over that I think my spirits were as high at that point as at any other during the evening.

It took two hours to clean up after the pigs.

No tip.

The Boss spoke to me on the Monday and accused me of being asleep while 'your customers were calling you.' He trusted these fools more than me.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have the kind of arseholes who own limousine services.