WORK

Man, I am tired.

Work popped up out of nowhere over the last two weeks, which characteristic of any service industry should be well known. And still people are surprised.

Now, to pay that dentist's bill...




Courtesy link [link]

Wise Heads

Young men and their lady friends sometimes find themselves in the back of my limousine. I'm impressed by the way they do the responsible thing, and pay for one of The Boss's limos (and me) to drive them around instead of doing it themselves.

In Florida, if you blow over .08 you are off to jail for the night, no questions asked. So a few hundred bucks to prevent that is the deal of the century.

These same young men aren't quite full-bottle on some of the finer points of limousine life. For instance, there are ways to circumvent The Boss's no smoking policy. One method that does not work is to raise the divider and light up a blunt. That results in me lowering the divider and politely pointing out that smoking is not allowed in the limousine, as per the rental agreement.

Someone needs to tell these boys that a polite request beforehand, and emoluments in the form of cash go a long way towards me overlooking The Boss and his silly rules.




Pic from here [link]

Amusement

The time evenings unravel is around 1:15 am. Sometimes it's earlier, but by that point any simmering differences between folks in the group rise to the surface.

Alcohol is the catalyst. Observing the arc of a night out with people in a limousine teaches you that even the most chummy friends can turn ugly on each other given enough neck-oil. It's sad, in truth, but just another human frailty.

Notwithstanding late-night bickering, I try to find amusement whenever I can. Of course I'm as sober as a Sarasota lawyer at 1:15 am, which gives me an advantage over most of my customers and opportunities to indulge my dark side. Here's a case in point:

If you have rented a large stretched limousine, a Hummer, for example, a recent model will set you back north of $150 per hour. That is $2.50 a minute. Think of it as a Bud Light per minute. This particular night out was organized by a self-made man, an electrical contractor from memory, and he was clearly the Alpha Dog amongst the six couples. We'd been to bars all over the Suncoast, and, as usual, the initial iciness towards me had melted. The mood was happy and festive. Until the 1:15 hour.

Our Alpha decided it was time to settle up the bill to that point. We stopped outside one of his buddies' houses, and he whipped out a wad of cash collected from the players.

How much do I owe you? he asked. I totted it up, and let's say it came to $650 dollars.

He then started counting fifties and twenties into my hand, backwards from $650. Swaying and slurring all the while, he did a pretty good job, although the leap from $610 to $590 took him a lot of mental energy. Why he insisted on counting backwards is a mystery, but backwards was the way he wanted it.

At around $420, someone would come up to him (we were standing at the rear of the limo) and offer him a drink or a cigarette, or the inevitable ongoing argument inside would spill outside and distract him.

He would then take all the money back from me, and start counting down again from $650, only to be interrupted at the $420 mark.

The third time this happened, when he started again he asked how much he owed me to date. $688 I said. He stopped and looked at me.

I thought you said $650?

Yes, but we've been standing here counting money for fifteen minutes, and you now owe me $38 more.

He then started counting backwards from $688.

This went on for forty minutes. I laughed then, and for days after. On the inside, of course.




Also published here. [link]