Emergency!

The Boss called with a rush-job on Saturday, today - a rival limo company's car was in trouble, and they needed our biggest stretch to complete the run. No time for showering or dressing, the quicker I could pick up the stranded passengers, the better.

Grabbing my work bag, I headed out, mentally figuring how long it would take to pick up the limo from the depot, drive to the scene of the emergency, take them the forty or so miles to their destination, drive back to the depot, gas up, clean up, and do the paperwork. This is the way (I guess) every limo driver's brain works; we're figuring out the time we'll arrive home, or be drinking our first beer.

The stranded limo driver called me, sounding desperate.

"How long for you to get here?" he asked plaintively.

"About twenty-five or thirty minutes" I replied.

"Oh God", he breathed. "I hope I'm still alive by then."

Grim times ensue for the chauffeur when his steed fails him, for people can get mighty antsy mighty quickly. When things go awry the only refuge is the truth and apology. If customers think that being late to dinner is worth blowing an aorta, then that's their problem. From the reactions I have witnessed, you would think that we purposely orchestrate mechanical failure.

But none of that was my problem in this case; I was the knight in shining armor, the humble rescuer saving the day. They were grudgingly thankful for me being there, but still not overly happy. But I don't care. I'm having a beer.

Vegas, Baby

Unusual driving gigs add piquancy to the usual roster of airport transfers and bachelor hoedowns, or "ho-go-downs" as a recent customer named them.

Classy.

Out-of-the-ordinary jobs include those which take us to an unlikely destination, or involve interesting or famous people, or leave one asking plenty of questions. I had an example of the latter last week, one that left puh-lenty of room for speculation.

My dispatch docket showed the time at which a privately-owned jet was scheduled to arrive at our local airport, together with the number of people traveling (two), and the address to which I was to drive them. This stank of the unusual from when I searched online for the owners of this particular jet (a corporation in Las Vegas) to the fruitless quest to find just where the customers' residence was (somewhere in our county.) The street name, or the possible typo-induced variations of it, just didn't make sense. Curiouser and curiouser. Oh well, the customers will know where they live. They will speak English despite their obviously Asian name, right?

At the appointed time plus thirty minutes the fifty-million dollar jet taxied to the FBO's ramp, and I pulled the limo up to the stairway, as close as I could to the plane without giving the ground crew a heart attack. From the glossy interior stepped a Chinese-looking man and his wife, probably in their mid-thirties. They spoke no English. I enlisted the help of the two flight attendants, but they had only the same non-existent address as me. No help there.

Eventually, the nice customer called another man who did speak English, who gave me clear directions to their house, which was in a brand-new development. It looked like my folks had bought the model. Despite the communications gaps, everything ended well.

In case you hadn't guessed, the jet belonged to a big Las Vegas casino with three Ms in its name. The couple had presumably been flown home at the casino's expense, but the big question is: did they win a fortune, or did they lose a fortune?

My tip for a fifteen minute ride was $35. I think that's a clue.

Up in my grille

Lounging in the back of my mind like an overstayed house-guest is the worry of mechanical breakdown. You would think that a business completely reliant upon mechanical fidelity would be hyper-aware of maintenance and the possibility of failure. But apparently I am the only limousine-industry worker in history to know anything about Six Sigma.

I am not suggesting that fundamentally barnyard operations like chauffeured transportation companies should aspire to chip-fab clean-room analism, but the odd oil change never goes astray.

Matters are not quite that bad, but so that we're clear, limousines are not as well maintained as, say, the average Floridian domiciled Buick owned by a retired Ohioan machine-tool salesman. They just aren't. In the end it's inconsequential, because if you and your party are transported to and from wherever we've contracted, it's fine. Only when shits are trumps does it matter.

My nightmare is a break-down on Alligator Alley with a doctor and his family. They are planning to catch a flight from Miami for a hugely expensive cruising vacation in Europe. He has timed everything down to the second, and if anything - anything - goes wrong, the ship will sail from Barcelona without them, requiring over-the-top solutions like helicopters to recover.

Picture me waking in the middle of the night, steamed with perspiration, dreaming that I have broken down on the side of I-75, listening to the tirade of the doctor as he tells me in exquisite detail how I have personally ruined his life.

Welcome to my life.

Wedding Organizer

If a Marine and gay man formed a partnership, they would have the most perfect wedding organizing business. (Which, if the Marine was gay, could be a great one-person enterprise.) Sadly, most wedding organizers I see are a cross between Brüno and Borat. What the profession needs is the creative flair of the gay man, and the organizational and command skills of the Marine, all of which are rarely on display.

Providing limousines for weddings is a solid part of The Boss's business. First we collect the 'boys' from wherever they're staying, and transport them to the site of the proposed nuptuals. Oftentimes the boys are hungover. Can't think why.

Then we go find the 'girls' and wait for them to be ready. Almost always the anxiety level is quite high here, but there's nothing I can do to help. Our side of the arrangement is simply to be there with the correct limousine at the assigned time, then drive them to the ceremony.

This is all simple enough stuff, right? Well, it would be if even one person had some kind of master plan to hand. You would expect the wedding planner to know every detail of the day, but rarely are they capable of arranging more than some seats for guests, a photographer and a bill for their services.

Some examples of the disorganization, as seen from the chauffeur's point of view:

Where EXACTLY is the wedding ceremony being held? "A beach on Siesta Key" covers quite a lot of sand.

What time EXACTLY do you want to be there? Out-of towners are poor at matching distance and time.

No, I do not know where the floral arrangements are. If you show me, I'll certainly look after them.

No, I do not know anything about bottles of champagne for afterwards, and no, I cannot legally sell them to you. I will be happy to go buy some for you though, if you give me some cash.

No, I do not know what your favorite champagne is.

Yes, there is a difference between French and domestic. (Merde!)

No, I do not know where the reception is being held. At the time you booked the limousine, you did not know yourself. Did you call back to tell us where you had decided? Ah-ha. I see.

Okay, so we're not going to Denny's now, we're going for more photographs? Fine, but you understand you are being charged by the hour?

No, trust me. The Boss did not say he was giving you a free fourth hour.

Yes, photographers do have a strong will of their own, don't they?

I am sorry, but I wasn't at the practice. I don't know in which order you should walk into the reception.

And finally:

No, the gratuity is never included.

Grandchildren

Q: Why do grandparents and their grandchildren get along so well?

A: Because they have a common enemy.

Summertime on the Suncoast and it's time to bring the grandkids to town to visit gramps and grammy. School's out, and the parents are gagging to be rid of the fruit of their loins, despite doubts about the bad habits they'll learn from overindulgent oldsters.

The trips are always some variation of the grandkids traveling here accompanied by the grandparents, with the parents then arriving a week or two later to retrieve their progeny. If the g-kids travel alone, the g-parents often want to be picked up by the limousine first and then go to the airport to collect the young ones so they can be there to help with bags and suchlike. This will happen even if the grandkids are thirty.

Attitudes change when the 'grands' are together. My old opening joke is truer than you would believe, as a recent Fort Myers Airport pickup demonstrates. The g-parents started off on a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean, flew to a northern US city for a few days, and brought the g-kids back to Florida with them. When I met them in the terminal, they were all smiles, chatting away, laughing at shared jokes. Now these are nice customers anyway, but the genuine pleasure the two young ones took in their older relatives was heart-warming.

The hour-long trip home even featured some trumpet-playing from the young man, and although he turned 'In the Mood' into 'Smells like Teen Spirit' it was just another slice of fun.

By contrast, when kids are in the limo with their parents, there is a universal shut-down of communication. If there isn't mock sleeping with iPod-induced privacy, they retreat into the depths of their Blackberries or iPhones, no doubt searching for answers to the world's problems in that small screen.

What do they find there, I wonder. Or maybe they're texting gramps.

Head Shop Limousine

Taking an impromptu poll of limo-driving colleagues recently, I asked which was better: the Bachelor Party, or the Bachelorette Party.

Surprisingly, the result was an even split. For my money, bachelorettes win going away. If I'm to spend a night driving eight or fifteen partiers around, make them ladies in LBDs. In their defence, bachelors are easier to deal with, because they most often have a plan, and communicate it.

That plan is always the same. From the first pick-up point, we drive around to collect all the revelers. Many of the weddings held here are of folks from out of town, so everyone is scattered at hotels and motels of varying quality, from the Ritz-Carlton to certain roach habitués on the road into town. Then we proceed to a liquor store. Then they want to find some action. That means girls.

Optimism is a characteristic of bachelor party limousine customers. The guys are all in the car, music cranked, drinks flowing, everyone smelling like they showered in cologne. When I ask them where they'd like to go they say "Take us to the bar with lots of babes, man."

This is in Sarasota, on a Tuesday night, in July. Guys, there just isn't that much going on here. Don't you understand that this is the best town in the world to be single....and over seventy? Of course I don't verbalize my thoughts, but I gamely suggest a few places which we dutifully try. Then we go to Cheetah, our premier strip club.

The most recent bachelor party I drove reversed the order. After collecting everybody and all the booze, they watched strippers take their money first. This inspired idea worked because the guys were relatively sober, and had the place (and all the strippers) to themselves. After they'd taken their fill of gyrating girldom, it was time to go to bars to "...find us some amateur pussy, Wombat."

I remember the night clearly because all but one of the guys smoked. That's unusual, especially in a preppy crowd like that. The Boss definitely does not allow smoking in his limos, the fact of which always disappoints lads and ladettes. Repeatedly they asked if they could have just one cigarette in the car while we drove, but I had no choice but to deny them.

They eventually won the argument. Upon leaving Cheetah, the divider went up, and after a minute, the distinctive sweet smell of burning Mexican ditch weed permeated my cabin. We were only going a few blocks, so I figured I'd leave them alone. Making a scene over one spliff on a bachelor party was likely to ruin my chances of a decent tip, so I let it be.

We never did find any girls.

Miami

Ah, Miami. She's the Jewel of the Everglades, the Paris of the Caribbean, the Gateway to South America. Thinking of her leads to daydreams of beaches and bikinis, shopping and sophistication, blow and, well, blow-jobs.

If only there weren't so much traffic, I could actually get there to see for myself.

A trip to the other side (how we Gulf-Coasters refer to *tilts head to the east* the Atlantic side of Florida) makes one realize how good we have it here. It's orders of magnitude less busy and commensurately calmer. It is with good reason I call the Suncoast The Tropical Midwest. We are Indiana with palms, or Michigan with sun, at least in the way people behave.

When Alligator Alley ends and the spectre of Miami-Dade County appears, a professional driver adopts a different attitude. I shift higher in my seat, make sure the sunnies are polished, and set my jaw.

The danger is that a local driver (aka: duelista) will sniff your weakness, because the hindmost of the herd are dealt with mercilessly. If you're too slow, they'll pass in flurry. If you leave too much room between you and the car ahead, they'll nonchalantly fill the gap, brake, lose forty mph and dial their mother before you can blink. And heaven forfend you fail to interpret the traffic signs correctly (was that NW 167th Street or just 167th Street?), because hesitation will have you run over by a Waste Management truck before you can say "Shit!"

In short, if I-95 (or any surface street for that matter) isn't at a dead stop for an hour it's holding an impromptu Formula One qualifying session.

But if you do reach your destination on the same day, it's got great buttocks. I'm sorry, I mean it's a great place, and my goodness the women are attractive.

Policemen are our friends

Driving past the Florida Highway Patrol depot yesterday I noted the place was chock-full of cruisers. It didn't surprise me, because I imagine budget cuts mean fewer troopers, less money for gas, and many fewer donuts.

Sorry, cheap gag. We all know the cops get their donuts gratis, for their toil in the community, and rightly so. They did agree to protect and serve, so we citizens should agree to protect their right to be served free coffee and donuts.

Okay, I'll stop now.

The downside of fewer law enforcers is the creeping disregard for road rules. Chronic red-light busting in Florida is a given. Rolling-stop right turns don't raise an eyebrow. Fifteen over the limit is the limit. It's the same problem that Rudy Giuliani faced in New York City when he came to office, what was known as the broken window syndrome.

Left uncorrected, bad (and illegal) driving becomes the norm, leading to further erosion of respect for the law, at least that's the theory.

My pet dislike is unrestrained loads. I've dodged enough ladders, mattresses, sectional sofas, paint buckets, drink coolers, pails, air compressors and other truck-bed detritus for a lifetime. I fear that the next tradesman's tool to bounce from the back of his Silverado doing 90 mph will come straight through my windshield and kill me.

It nearly happened to Maria Federici.

People

Lest you start to think that driving a limousine is a glamorous gig, I shall disabuse you of that notion right now.

Firstly, it's just another minimum wage job. Like many others thusly recompensed, it involves lots of drudgery, much of which is cleaning. It feels like I'm always wiping, polishing or vacuuming some damn thing or another, both inside and outside the cars. There are windows and glasses, carpets and couches, woodwork and coasters. It never seems to end.

Secondly, you get to drive around a lot. That's fun for a while, but quickly leads one to Buddhism. It's either that or the gun shop. Namaste.

Thirdly, there is the waiting. There is lots and lots of waiting. Now for me, that's not so much of a problem, because there are millions of books out there waiting for me to read. For colleagues who aren't word-minded, those hours spent waiting for customers must drag like Danny La Rue.

The payback for all the tiresomeness is the people. You meet people well outside the six degrees of separation, and for me, that is worth it.

Security Details

Chauffeur is a French word meaning "no social life".

On Saturday night I was all set to attend a chi-chi party when The Boss called with a last minute limo job. Drat. Into the monkey suit again, and off into the night I go.

I am always wary of these rush jobs that turn up out of the blue. Most folks who rent limousines plan it well in advance, because of a special occasion, or simply because a night out can cost a decent amount. Quick response gigs often come about after a few hours drinking at home, and someone, probably out of boredom says "Hey you guys, let's rent a limo!"

Like almost anything you hear after five gallons of Captain and Coke, it sounds like a tremendous idea. Until the credit card statement arrives.

Saturday night's folks weren't quite in that state of mind, but were on their way. A clue is when the plans that The Boss told you about - they want to go for a quiet dinner and a few drinks locally - turns into "Take us to the Hard Rock, Tom, we wanna go find us some fun, man!"

Notwithstanding, they were all very nice people, happy not to smoke in the car, communicative and smiling. The fun began three hours after I had dropped them at the casino. One of the women called me and said "Tom, get here ASAP." Rolling into the forecourt, the problem was obvious. My people were surrounded by nine security people, seven men and two women.

But it wasn't what you'd imagine. The person being escorted out of the hotel (shouting, quite loudly) into the limo was indeed one of the women in my party, but it was her friends who had requested the heavies. Apparently she had started in on her boyfriend, and when he proved unresponsive, began sitting down with other people in the restaurant, at their dining tables, looking for sympathy.

When she didn't see her friends' point about it perhaps being time to leave, they figured to pre-empt strangers complaining, and sought professional help for one of their own.

And you should have heard the howling on the way home. "You motherfuckers don't respect me, how could you do this to me, you douchebags are all assholes, and YOU (to the boyfriend) can't even get it up!"

It seems not having sex for three days was too much for her.

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And, God forgive me, I am back here.


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