People who know me know that I am a card carrying feminist. I spend a lot of time thinking about how the world would be a better place if the feminine came into it's own and was better reflected by society. I cringe when I see memes on the internet that are obviously misogynistic but that women have “lol”ed or “liked”. It bugs me when people say they hate working for a woman, as if working for one bitch was the same as working for all women....
People roll their eyes behind my back.
As a taxi driver though, I've had to accept equal opportunity in a whole new way with the realization that most of my wost experiences have been with the so called fairer sex.
The only time that anyone has run away on me, for instance, was four pre-teen year girls I picked up at McDonalds at three in the morning. (Which should have been a clue in itself) I was fairly green as a night driver at the time and did things that I would never do now.. like let all four of them sit in the back...and whisper, and give no specific number when naming their street destination. But ultimately my biggest mistake was my underestimating their capacity to be sneaky little thieves because they were pretty little girls. They disappeared like phantoms in the night which irked me more than the eleven dollars they ripped off me for.
Speaking of thieves.. One of the weirdest calls I ever had went something like this. I was dispatched to a convenience store, in broad daylight, where a young woman got into the backseat and sat behind me.. this was already strange because half the people who get into my small town taxi alone, ride shotgun, rarely behind me where it is most difficult to communicate... (And where the other woman who drives won't let lone men sit at all) .. She directed me to a local park and off we went.. When we got there to my surprise she was suddenly incognito. A hoodie with the the hood tied up, a scarf over her face, sunglasses, the whole bit.. She informed me that this would be a return.. she didn't get out. Two young men approached the car and I sat there while the young woman proceeded to sell them a stolen iphone.. Awkward Cabbie moment... (Don't mind the invisible adult.). When the deed was done I drove her back to the store while she transformed to her innocent looking self.. She paid me with a twenty and didn't wait for change which left me with a pretty good tip and no real way to identify her if I ever wanted to.
Speaking of tips... men are more generous... there I said it ..Except for women who work in the service industry.. because they know. I guess it's because men have more money... and what can you do? What pisses me off though is the people that expect something for nothing while they look down their nose at me for being a lowly Taxi driver. Like this woman that lives at the high end adult building in town. I was dispatched to the Metro store for a dreaded grocery run.. There she stood, about my age but out of shape and with an attitude..I popped the trunk and got out to help her with her bags, but to my surprise ended up doing it all myself while she got into the car.. The drive to her apartment is so short it could easily be walked. It ends up being six dollars including the three fifty drop fee, which she gave me to the penny.. no tip.. Then to my utter shock she got out of the car and began walking to the building somehow expecting me to carry her groceries.. Now it was her turn to be surprised because there are some things I just won't tolerate .. lazy arrogance is one of them.. so I got out, removed her bags from my car, placing them gently on the pavement beside it, and drove away.. When I called in to clear with my dispatcher I simply said “expect a complaint”.. which is cabbie speak for asshole alert.
Now I admit that the job isn't the most prestigious one on the planet, but here's how I know for sure. At the end of a shift, one weekend night I was dispatched to a small town to pick up people to take them to a bigger one even farther away. Our policy is to start the meter at the edge of our town when we aren't coming back to it, to make it worth our while. So that is what I did. It's always a risk that the customer won't be there, so the farther you go to pick them up the bigger the loss of time and money if they aren't there.. In this case the dispatchers sent me to minimize risk because I live close...if I didn't get a fare I could just go home and if I did it was icing on the cake of an already good night. I was picking them up at the convenience store and they were indeed there in all there shaggy glory. Obviously not from this particular town, the three slight men and one hard looking woman in grey baggy track pants got into my car. The men seemed happy to be on their way but the woman was having nothing to do with the meter already running. Her belligerence was exceeded only by her exquisite sense of Saturday night style. I was forced to send the motley crew packing. This infuriated the fashionista and she spewed the most vile thing she could think of on her way out of my cab.. “Get a real job”
The only fight I've ever seen for a Taxi was.. you guessed it... between women. It was just around last call at a local bar on a busy early fall night; cool but apparently not enough to warrant jackets, which made people even more anxious for a cab. I could see there was going to be an issue the second I pulled up, when more women than could fit in my cab began to approach.. Nothing like the look of drunk people approaching ones car..but that's another story.. In this one I quickly opened the passenger window to assure the mob that there was another taxi right behind me.. but to no avail. All doors swung open as representatives from both groups staked their claim on my car. The situation quickly escalated into a slagging match.. Shotgun closed the door but the window was still open which made her extremely vulnerable to the sucker punch she was about to receive from the rather large woman coming her way...Bang right in the face..right in the eye!! The fight was on! Everybody jumped out and grown women physically fought for a Taxi.. It was truly ridiculous... Men came from the nearby patio to break them up... Someone threw a pitcher of beer...Some boyfriend closed my doors and apologized profusely ..Other taxi's pulled in and everybody got a ride home.... I took shotgun and her friends. There is no escape from the human energy within the confines of a taxicab. This trip was thick with spoken and unspoken regret.. They postured some but Shotgun cried when she imagined explaining her now developing black eye to her young son.
I would normally rather stick pins in my eyes than call the police so I haven't ..ever.. except for once when I had to turn in a ... wait for it... woman! It was a winter Thursday night and I got dispatched to a local watering hole.. as I approached I could see a very intoxicated woman on the outside patio, sitting on a chair ..going nowhere without help.. and I said to myself, and then to my dispatcher “No way”, as I slowly pulled away from the front of the building. “Too intoxicated”.. “Don't blame you” another driver perked up, and I remember him commenting when he had dropped her off that he didn't think they'd let her in. And apparently they hadn't. Not my problem. Until a few minutes later when I got dispatched there again with the assurance that it was somebody else.. ya right. This time when I pulled up she was in the arms of a man that I knew.. A local party dude and hockey fan that likes me for my familiarity with a certain former Leaf.. He was being the good guy that he is trying to help the bouncers get her out when he offered to escort her home..or so I thought.. They put her in the back and he got in beside me. It was only then that I saw the blood dripping from a big bite hole in his bottom lip.. seems there may have been other things going on.. The bouncer said to put the ride on their account and bid us good riddance. I hit the meter and turned to ask where she lived. No answer.. incoherent babble.. then just plain belligerence.. This was clearly not just alcohol.. It got old to me fast though, so I told her to either tell me where she lived or next stop was the police sitting across the street.. More belligerence. What else could I do? The police were not impressed when I presented with a problem that required them getting out of their car..and they were even less impressed when they met her acquaintance. More belligerence and a little resistance and it wasn't long until she was on her way to her room for the night.
The only time that I've been assaulted as a taxi driver was.. of course ..by a woman, in the form of a pretty viscous pull of the hair.. It was a lesson quickly learned about provoking the intoxicated, and she who poses the greater threat to me as a cabbie. I had never realized before then that I am much more vulnerable to assault by a female than I am by a male who would probably think twice.. considering how pathetic it would look...
Now you might be thinking that all my problems with women are because I am a woman, and to be honest, the thought has crossed my mind. People say it out loud to me. And to some extent it must be true. BUT a funny thing happened while I was contemplating this blog. I was in the laundry mat with this very pleasant older couple. The man couldn't help noticing that I was driving a taxi and immediately identified himself as a former driver so that we could swap stories and commiserate... as Taxi drivers are wont to do. The very first thing he said about the subject was ..and I quote “The women are the worst eh?”
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