Inconsiderate, Inc

Early morning pickups are fraught with danger.

Everyone (in general ) has cut the timing right to the bone, so every minute counts. One particular job comes to mind, a 3:30 am collection time, although I must say that there are plenty just like it. For a start, the customer's house was in a fancy gated community, which all take an age to navigate.

What's with the endlessly winding streets spread out over thousands of acres, guys? There's nowhere to walk. There are no sidewalks. There are no shops. There's nowhere to go and nothing to do. Unless you are endlessly entertained by golf what the hell is there to do in these places? And if golf does entertain you 24/7, there's no saving you. And neither should there be.

I'm there, early as usual, at this guy's mock Italiante Villa on a golf course in Florida. The time is 3:15 am. I've been up since 2:00 am. I'm ready to drive this dude to Tampa, and go home and go back to bed.

It's not reasonable to knock or ring the doorbell that early. Maybe there are kids, maybe there are relatives. I reverse the Town Car into the driveway and wait. The hope is that the customer will walk out the door, luggage in hand, and be ready to go.

Fat chance.

At 3:30 I rang the bell.

A minute later the wife opened the door and scampered down the faux granite steps to explain to me that her husband had overslept, and that he'd be out momentarily. Sure. Whatever. Like my time's worth nothing, because dopey forgot to set his alarm.

Thirty minutes later, Mr Business appears at the doorway, grip in hand, freshly showered, ready to go. Excellent! Good-morning sir, may I take your luggage? Please, take a seat here, we'll be under way as soon as I can.

Sorry, he says, the alarm didn't go off.

And you know, I believe him. He was completely apologetic, and an interesting guy to boot. And I feel bad that his company, which trades on the Pink Sheets OTC is not doing so well.

We all screw up. But at 4:00 am, it seems that much worse.

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.

The Boss

In the past, when I listened to self-improvement tapes while I ran or walked, most of it literally went in one ear and out the other. Not much stuck inbetween. One thing that did, however, is the idea that many of us are mentally stuck in high school.

It appeals to on a visceral and a logical level. I saw it in myself, I guess, and that brought home the horror of being a fully physically mature man and still a mental adolescent. What an awful thing. And you know what? I have found this again, in the figure of The Boss.

It's not new to me, given that I've been living with this thing for years, but events of recent times show me that it's time the veil of anonymity be raised, if ever so slightly. I want to bring this face of stupidity right out in the open, if only for my own fun. As a man I trust completely says, to think bad things is one thing, but to do them is quite another.

I wonder where blogging about a complete douchebag fits?



Cartoon from here [link]

Little Old Ladies

It's the fact of living in Florida, but many of my adventures revolve around old people. Seniors, in the argot, or oldsters, or silly old farts depending on my mood.

In the limo game, I learned from experience that little old ladies belie their benign looks (and reputation). In real life, these people are sharks, manipulating hapless optimists like me with the skill of a Reno card dealer. Don't let their stooped stature and old-lady smell fool you - they know the value of a buck, and how to keep them in their purse, and out of your pocket.

The job sheet showed me collecting two local ladies from Tampa airport, late on a Sunday night. Two friends on vacation sharing a towncar ride back to their respective residences; it's a common-enough deal.

Let's say the total was $140.00. It's normal for folks to use a credit card to reserve a booking, and then pay cash. The Boss is always up front about the cost, which he is careful to make clear to the customer. Also, another driver had driven them to the airport a week earlier, so they knew the drill. And to further solidify the arrangement, we talked about the fact they were paying cash, half each. They knew exactly how much the ride cost.

After I'd schlepped the first lady's bag to the door, she gave me a handful of cash as arranged. Being as I was trusting of Little Old Ladies at that point, I didn't count it. Like I said, she'd already been through this on the outward leg, so why would I question it?

The second lady lived in a high-rise. Dutifully I carried her three bags full of gold bricks up the stairs, into the elevator, and along the breezeway to her apartment. She, too, gave me a handful of cash, and in the same trusting manner, I shoved it in my pocket. She also made a point of saying that there was a little something for me there too.

That's nice. A small tip for my manual labor makes for a happy evening...

...until I returned to base and counted the cash. Instead of a $70-00 wad and a $70.00 plus-some wad, I had two $65-00 wads. Not only had I been swindled, there was no gratuity and she knew it. The choice at that point is to make phone calls, knock on doors and go chase the money. But then I saw this episode for what it was: a ten dollar learning experience. So I added a sawbuck of my own and to this day I count every note that passes my hands.

Sorry, I trust you, but a couple of old grifters shook me down once....


Pic from here [link]

Also published here [link]

Statists

As soon as man discovered trade, man began taxing it. Along the rivers of Europe the castles of noblemen still stand, testament to the wealth they accumulated by taking money from people moving stuff up and down those rivers. On stretches of the Rhine, tax collectors stopped traffic every few miles. They didn't improve the process; they simply added friction.

Today is no different, except in one aspect. Noblemen no longer tax us; the state does. In Florida, one agency of the state creating friction in our lives is the Florida Highway Patrol. I'm unable to tell you of many of my experiences with the troopers, because that would reveal my identity. But my latest contact with these people sealed the deal - they are modern-day tax collectors, pure and simple.

As a lawyer friend of mine said, they're not there to enforce the law, they are there to hide behind it. Or, as he more colourfully put it, to screw the driver whilst fully uniformed.

Traffic Karma? Nope. Doesn't exist. And if I had any power against usurious government agencies who purport to 'serve' us, I would use it. Arseholes.





Edited for clarity. I think I'm clear now.