People are people

The reason I started in the limousine game in the first place was to meet people.

Working at home, alone, was driving me slowly insane. In the absence of anything resembling a social life, taking an evening and weekend job was logical. Although I rant a little here, I'm glad of the experience. Doing something outside my comfort zone is good for my brain, creating new pathways or synapse links or whatever the heck happens up there.

People are the upside and the downside of life. People can make your day, and people can ruin your day (if you allow them). Driving has meant I have met people I would never have found before, and every new person gives a slightly different slant on life.

At one point I thought I was a good judge of character, but now I know different. In fact, I have stopped judging people altogether, given how past snap decisions have done them and me a disservice. Thesedays I simply watch, observe, look, question and remain neutral.

After a while, people will show you their true nature.

Glass cleaning facilities

For those of you with strong constitutions, this is where the limousine glasses are washed.



And here is where they are dried.



Just so that you don't think I'm part of this conspiracy, I take my own dish cloths, so at least the last part of the process is hygienic.

Mind reading

Reading other people's minds is one of the many skills the professional limousine driver needs to succeed in his chosen field.

It works like this. You will collect a couple, or three, or four, knowing that they want to start their evening at a particular restaurant or bar. On Harry's trip sheet, it's usually referred to as:

Take from residence to Mongrel Grill for dinner, then as directed.

It's the "as directed" part that sometimes gets messed up.

You know you're in for a big night when they say, Nah, forget about the Mongrel Grill, we don't want to go there. Where's the action in town tonight? Take us there.

Great. Now I'm responsible for the success or failure of their evening, with the resulting effect on everyone's mood. In this part of Florida there IS nowhere to go on a Tuesday night. Alright, maybe a handful of places that might have some live music and atmosphere, but come on people, the average age here is 231. Dinner service is over at most places by 6:45.

Once they've had a few adult beverages, things loosen up. They usually start being more chatty, but also more forgetful. I receive the call to collect them from one place, and everyone piles in. I often just start driving, because it's not my position to start demanding answers. At some point, someone will shout "Hey, where are you going?" to which I always say, "Sir, wherever you want." Some form of instruction usually follows.

WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL ME WHERE YOU WANT TO GO WHILE I'M HOLDING THE DOOR OPEN FOR YOU, YOU IDIOT?

Boy, that feels better.

What's worse than a fool? A drunk fool in a limousine.

Don't use limousine glasses

All I'm saying is, if you're ever in a limousine, use plastic cups or bring your own.

That's all.








Hint: Do you know how they're washed?

Arriba!

Question: How many people can you fit into this limousine?

Answer: 24.

It's completely illegal, of course, as the beast is only licensed for 16 punters. But when it's a sunny Saturday and the event is a Mexican wedding, then who am I to be the Limousine Grinch?

I'm rapidly learning that different cultures have remarkably different norms, especially in social situations. Mexican folks apparently don't put much stock in the tradition of the bride being given away by her father. I was chatting to the father - well, trying to understand him, as I don't speak Spanish - beforehand, and the gist of it was that his role was limited. It was her mother we had to wait for at the church, and it was her mother who gave the final assent for the hitching to go ahead.

It was a Catholic ceremony, as one would expect. The groom, when he appeared with his new bride an hour and a half later, looked as if he had seen a ghost. He honestly seemed shell-shocked: blank faced, silent, wide-eyed. It was as if he was a wild animal freshly captured for the amusement of everyone else.

Rather an apt metaphor for his wedding day don't you think?

The funniest part of the day was the "videographer." This guy ran the entire show, choreographing the arrival of the limousine, the opening and closing of doors and pretty much everything else. When the wedding party emerged from the chapel he shooed them all back inside so he could get a better angle.

In twenty years the happy couple will relive it and marvel at how wonderful everything was. But on the day they were tired, hungry, stressed and feeling powerless. At least we stopped for cokes and corn chips on the way to the reception. That cheered everyone up no end.

Technorati: Weddings, Limousine Life, Marriage, Mexicans.

People lie

People lie. There's no way around it, they lie to themselves, and they lie to their limousine driver.

The lies start small, and expand like insulating foam to fill the void. A common lie is "Oh, we'll only be four hours, we want to be home by nine-thirty."

This one happened Monday night. A man celebrating his 34th birthday with his wife and some friends began with the intention of being home early.

At 1:30 am, while I was in the car park of Cheetahs, I contemplated the change of mind. All along they knew it was to be a big night, but couldn't bring themselves to admit it. When I collected them at 5:30 pm, and dropped their kids at Grandma's place, it was clear they were out to do some damage. Especially the wife.

The other big lie that starts small is "We're going to be the easiest customers you ever had."

This, more than any other statement, puts me on edge. Why? Because one man's "easy" is another man's two hours on the back of the clock cleaning up the shit left by ferals lucky enough to scrape up the four hundred bucks to hire me for five hours.

These people use every glass in the limousine. They smoke. They put their feet on the ceiling - don't ask me why. They insert crushed Goldfish into every seat crevice and still complain that the radio doesn't tune correctly.

"You've been great," they say, handing me a five and five ones. "Next time, we're gonna ask for you." * hic *

Yessir, and next time I'm unavailable.

Strippers to Miami (the whole story)

Can you go to Miami tonight? Harry, breathless as ever when there's a sniff of easy money.

Sure, who's the customer?

There's a lady you're taking to the Ritz-Carlton, just pick her up and drive her there, I've already run the credit card. Her boyfriend is paying, he's really missing her.

Boyfriend? Really?

Just get to the office, I'll tell you more when you get here.

He really must have been missing her, because Harry charged him $400, a pretty decent innings even when you take out my cut, the gas and the tolls.

Unfortunately, the story isn't quite as romantic as it appears. The young lady concerned was polite enough when I collected her, and she brought a friend. A very unhappy looking younger friend, I might add, whose own boyfriend was not pleased she was leaving. He gave me the stink eye, to which my response was to give him one of Harry's cards, breezily telling him that any limousine hire he needed, we wanted the business.

Once under way, Beverly was on the phone. We found out that she:

-> Worked at Cheetahs (a strip joint), but didn't really like it as much as her old club.

-> Had left her six month-old son to undertake this desperate journey.

-> The 'boyfriend' in Miami was some rich dude she'd met whilst stripping.

My guess at her age, confirmed by the driver who brought them back, was that she was 21, and the friend was 20.

I'm never sure of the current PC way to view strippers. Should we laud them for being independent women, living out their dreams, having complete control over their lives and bodies?

Or should we see them as victims of oppressive men, exploited for sex and their sexuality, unable to find decent paid work that an equivalent male would get easily?

Frankly, I couldn't help but think of her baby. If you're a father, you know you've fucked up when you find out your daughter's a stripper. If you're the child of a stripper, what do you think? In any case, the child obviously had no dad, and that is the worst part of the entire tale.

So, yes, I took two strippers to Miami, but it was a lesson in irresponsibility and the frailty of man. No glamour there.

Technorati: Limousine Life, Strippers, Miami, Boyfriends.

Coffee. The limousine driver's lifeblood.

Weird, long hours and a need to stay (somewhat) alert inevitably leads to drinking way too much coffee. We limousine chauffeurs are constantly balancing the diuretic effect of caffeine against its pepping-up effect. Like any drug, it has an upside and a fucked-upside.

But that's not what I would like to discuss today. I'd like to explore the staining effect of spilt coffee on a crisp white chauffeur's shirt, and the ways beverage cups help avoid or promote this problem.

Exhibit One: Seven-Eleven 16 oz Decaf.

This is the best take-out coffee lid. No surprise, this thing looks like an adult sippy cup. Note the lip-shaped raised mouthpiece and replaceable cover in case of turbulence. Pity the coffee's so awful, although for $1.29 what can you expect?



Exhibit Two: McDonalds Large Regular Coffee with One Cream.

In second place is the McDonald's distinctive black lid with brown cup. This too has a resealable cover for the...er...hole, and a reasonably shaped mouthpiece. Despite its lowly parenthood, the coffee's pretty good, and I believe Mickey D's is about to take on Starbucks in a big way. For less than two bucks, this represents top value, and won't stain your shirt.



Where would a discussion of coffee be without the venerable Starbucks? Frankly, everything about this thing is wrong. The cup burns your hand without one of those ridiculous sleeves. The price for regular filter coffee is exorbitant. And the lid. That lid is what inspired me to write about these things. That execrable thing is guaranteed to put fifty cents worth of brown stuff all over your shirt and tie while driving to pick up a big-time customer.

Damn thee, Starbucks, damn thee Howard Shultz, damn thee Mr Solo, the lid vendor. Traveler lid my arse.

Exhibit Three: Starbucks 12 oz Regular Decaf with a Room aka stupid in a cup.



What other blogs are saying: That better be a good coffee, the chauffeur stage of motherhood, no sense of decorum, that driver, sippy coffee zeitgeist.

Fading Brands

Harry has three different brands of limousines in his stable; Lincolns, Cadillacs, and one stretch Excursion. In order, made by Ford, General Motors and Ford again. And they're all pieces of shit.

The Lincolns are the best of the lot, but only by a small margin. Their engines are agricultural, the air-conditioning is cantankerous and overly complicated, and they all have problems with front disc rotor warping. The windscreen wipers are straight out of the 1930s. Useless.

The Cadillacs are even worse. They're prone to stalling unexpectedly, and the check engine light is permanently illuminated. If there is a real problem under the hood, there will be no way of knowing. The worst thing is that they both have terrible front-wheel shimmy at moderate to high speeds. It must be bloody unnerving for the customers, but after telling Harry many times now, he still hasn't fixed it.

I asked him whether he ever takes his own cars out for a test drive, and he looked at me like I was made of green slime.

I suggested to Harry that he'd be much better off with a fleet of used Lexuss (Lexii?) because they're completely bulletproof, and supremely comfortable. Unfortunately, his hands are tied. To work in Hillsborough County, where Tampa Airport lives, limousine services can only use American branded cars.

Strange but true. The county determines what equipment the limousine entrepreneur can use.

It's probably the only way US car companies can survive, given how they've been ruined by greedy unions and moronic management for so long. Like the fading politicians in the photo, Chevrolet and its cousins are deservedly dying brands.


Technorati: Fading Brands, US Cars Suck, Government Corruption, Limousines.

Strippers to Miami

If I didn't have to work tonight, I would tell you about the "rush delivery" I made last Thursday: two strippers from the sleepy side of Florida to Miami.

FedEx might do parcels, but we at The Boss's Limousine deliver the flesh.

What's their tracking code, I wonder?