Last night I picked some chic from 12th and G downtown who wanted to go to Glover Park. The way she flagged me was pretty strange and funny, she looked like she was doing some kind of Kung-Fu move. She probably was the only person in Washington who wore a knee length overcoat during that nice and warm July night last night. She was carrying a couple of J C Penny shopping bags and those bags brought me some painful memories.
Few years back, one night during the Christmas shopping season a woman in her thirty's got in to my cab with four J C Penny's shopping bags and asked to be driven to Germantown, Maryland. Even though it was a $60 fare, I don't like to go far away places in the woods, I hate to get out of my comfort zones, I miss the sounds of gun shots and shit in the city. But during all my years of hacking I have never refused to take a passenger where they wanted to go. NEVER! I am no pussy driver like Lugosi who is scared to drive to South-East DC.
She asked me how much the fare is going to be and after I told her I will take her for $60, she agreed and she never said a word after that until we arrived at her destination somewhere off Clopper road. "I will go inside the house and get some money and I will leave my bags here, please don't leave." she said with a convincing voice and disappeared in to the darkness behind a set of townhouses. I never suspected that she would con me because I felt those four bags she left in my back seat had to be worth something to her.
I waited for a good ten minutes while picking my nose like a retard but she never showed up. I got out of the cab and walked towards the back of the townhouse where she went to but later to realize that there were another group of townhouses as well and who knows where that bitch escaped to. I walked straight back to my cab and started to investigate what's in those bag! A BUNCH OF COPIES OF OLD WASHINGTON POST NEWSPAPERS!!! That witch played me good and I was pissed, I lost out on $60, an hour and half of my time by the time I got back to DC and my gas.
I was too embarrassed to tell my friends that I got played like that, it took me over a year to tell this story to my boy Pastor Joe. I even wanted to take some legal action against the Washington Post and the J C Penny Co. because their papers were accessories to a grand theft but some lawyer I was trying to hire bitch-slapped me out of his office laughing his ass off.
So I told this story to my passenger from last night and she jokeingly said she had to get some cash from her apartment, but instead she said she was sorry about the flash back that her shopping bag have caused and slapped me with a $5 tip.
Please don't forget the homeless,
Mad Cabbie.
11 comments:
Well Mad, that old story was something to learn from, eh? An expensive lesson though. Thanks for sharing.
You should keep sharing that story with gals packing bags from JC Penney's. Maybe the extra tips will help offset the $60 that gal stiffed you for years ago.
Keep smilin'.
Rob
It's good to see you writing again.
Yo Mad, the post reminded me of this line in "Taxi Driver."
Travis Bickle: All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets. I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, I take 'em to Harlem. I don't care. Don't make no difference to me. It does to some. Some won't even take spooks. Don't make no difference to me.
I am so glad you're back.
What the...? How'd I get dragged into this? I'm just sittin' here, minding my own business, whacking off while looking at naked pics of Britney Spears online, and suddenly my good name is being besmirched!!!
Besides, the REAL reason I don't want to go into southeast is because some desperate DC cabdriver might rob me of my valuable suburban meter.
Even if the holy-pope was going alway to Germantown, I will ask the motherfucker for my money upfront!
I DIDN'T FEEL SORRY FOR YOU WHEN YOU TOLD ME THIS STORY, YOU BIG IDIOT! AND i HOPE YOU WILL SHOW UP TOMORROW!
You burn in hell pastor! For disrespecting the POPE!
Ahhhh, Pork Chops. That story of the bags has many variations. There are the suitcases (which must have been boosted from somewhere, because suitcases AIN'T cheap) shopping bags, large envelopes and even grocery bags stuffed with newspapers, or trash.
One of the favourite stunts of farebeats in Arlington, years back, mind you, was to call from the hotline at one of the Grand Unions (diddun' know that I drove in Arlington, too, didja' there, MC? Oh yes, I already know the meter game, yup, 'been down that road, yup, yup ,yup'). They would have all of these bags in a cart, which you would help put into the trunk, then they would take a trip that was more than the average two dollar (see how far back it was?) grocery job. They would tell you that they were going inside and would get the bags out of the trunk when they 'came back'.
I had heard this story a few times, and it almost did happen to me. I got an 'Onion-13' (Grand Union on Fairfax at N. Garfield--Stand #13 covered that area). The guy pushed his cart up to the cab. The bags did not have that crisp, clean look that new grocery bags have. OK, maybe this guy is earthy-crunchy and reuses his bags. Then, they seemed a bit light. I accidentally on purpose tipped over one in the trunk that had an upside down Corn Flakes box peeking out of it. Yup, the box was empty and the top had been opened. Then, I 'tripped' and dumped another bag all over the ground--nothing but trash. I asked the guy where he was going, he told me, somewhere halfway between Falls Gulch and Merrifield, so I asked for twenty bananas before we moved. He started screaming and threatening to report me and all of this. He never produced the money and got his bags of trash out of my trunk. He did call back, but as I had warned the dispatcher, he did not get a cab from that firm. Maybe he called another, I do not know.
There was this other lady cab driver that I know who picked up a guy in a FedEx uniform who was holding and armful of those large FedEx envelopes. He pulled out a gun midway into the 'trip' and robbed her.
Do you remember the Hotel Tuxedo Bandit of a few years back? He would usually hail (although he did call, sometimes) a cab at a hotel, tell you that he was going to Walter Reed to get his suitcases, then go to Union Station. He was a tall dark skinned guy who always wore a tuxedo. He did his dastardly deeds usually between Two and six-Thirty A.M. He would pull out a gun on Georgia Avenue, just past Piney Branch. I was working late at night at the time. He got into my cab at the JW and gave me the song and dance. Since I was dispatching Midnight to Six A.M. (I was driving on a day off), back then, I had been warned. I told him that I was not taking him anywhere. He threatened to 'report me'. I told him 'please do, I will deny it, there will be a hearing, and the Police will be waiting for you there'. He called me a WMF, got out, left open my door and stomped down Fourteenth Street. I never heard from him. The Police did get him, eventually.
Yup, bags do not tell you anything.
I gotta say, Mad Cabbie, that one thing I love about Diamond Cab is that I have never had a problem getting home with them.
I live in Bethesda, just about, oh 5 minutes up the road from American University, so, I'm probably only 2 minutes over the line.
Despite being 2 minutes over the DC line, I've had a lot of cab companies try charging me $40 to get from the Dupont or Downtown area to home, or refuse to take me at all because the end point is in Maryland. I have NEVER had a problem with Diamond-the times where I couldn't get home with the cab I hailed (or wouldn't pay the outrageous fee), I either called Diamond or walked around until I found one, and they came to my rescue each time. :)
Wow. It wouldn't even dawn on me to pull a stunt like that. What if I had bags from Saks? Would it work then/again? Just kidding. I always pay my fare.
Now just wait a minute- "I have never refused to take a passenger where they wanted to go"?
What about that guy who stunk up your cab like shit?
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