Hello everybody, I hope you are well and earning enough.
Have you ever had one of those weeks where you think that everybody has either gone mad or is out to get you? Well thats what this week has been like for me. It started on Monday eve/Tuesday morning when nearly every punter that hailed me either wanted directions or a lift home for nothing,I even had 1 fella try to get me to take him from Tottenham Court Rd to Harrow for £20! So after a disappointing start to the week I decided to call it a day early and go home with just enough money to cover the days costs.
Tuesday evening started a bit better with a bit of account work being offered and after a flying start I trapped a job to N14 where the punter wanted to get a kebab but didn’t want me to keep the meter running while he waited for the shop to cook it. So I decided that I would head back into town and as I headed off I got offered a LUL job from Barnet to Golders Green, now I generally steer clear of the underground jobs ,as they are discounted too much but as it wasn’t too far from where I was I accepted it and set off to Barnet. I got there before the booked time and sat waiting for the punter to arrive only for the office to cancel the booking 10 mins later. We get the meter price minus 30% as the scrub fare so by the time they take the discount off it was a waste of time and diesel.
By the time I got back into town most of the work had dried up and after a couple of fairly fruitless hours driving around & half an hour on a rank watching the miniscabs taking jobs from the Melia Whitehouse I decided that enough was enough and went home.
Wednesday night was buzzing and it didn’t take too long to reach my nights target, and had even made a small inroad into the deficit from the previous 2 nights, when I was hailed by a couple on Farringdon road. They asked to go to Abbey wood and it was pretty evident that drink had been taken. Now I have a thing that I always do when people get in and they have had a drink which is to ask them if they need a cashpoint on the way home. This generally makes them have a look in their pockets,wallets,purses etc and most of the time I get a sensible answer that means no problems at the other end of the ride. So I asked the question and was told,after a quick pocket & wallet check, that they had enough on them so off we went.
As the journey progressed the couple did the usual “getting to know you better” back seat dance and I turned the radio up and kept my eyes forward. When we got to Abbey wood the girl,who was eastern european and had obviously fallen from the ugly tree,directed me to her address. When we got there the fella seemed anxious to leave the cab with her but she had other ideas and thanked him for a nice night and the ride home,jumped out of the cab and disappeared into the night.
The now dejected fella then gave me his address and we set off to Blackheath.
When we arrived at his road he told me that we would have to go to the cashpoint in the BP garage opposite his house as he didn’t have enough cash to pay me,but I wasn’t too worried because as he had thought he was getting his leg over at the girls house I just thought that he had not calculated the extra that the journey back to his place was going to add to the fare. After a couple of minutes while he messed around with the ATM he came back to the cab and said that he couldn’t get any cash from the machine as he had lost 1 card and couldn’t remember the pin for the others that he had. Now I’m not a hard person and as he had had a bit of a let down and the fact that I had had a fairly good night I decided to be benevolent and asked him how much short he was,thinkng that if it was only a tenner or so I’d let him off. So when he told me he only had a fiver on him I was less than pleased to say the least! ALL TRACES OF BENEVOLANCE HAD NOW GONE RIGHT OUT OF THE WINDOW!!!!!
Any of you that read my ramblings regularly will know that I am not that fond of going south of the river and the last place I wanted to be on a cold wet Thursday morning was Kidbroke Pk Rd having a row with some potless drunk then having to face the rush hour drive back to civilisation north of the river,
He started to say that he would send me a cheque and that he was sorry and he would pay me if he had his other card, and as if to prove to me that he had really lost his credit card he handed me his wallet to inspect. As I looked in it I saw a credit card tucked right down in the lining of the card section and when I pulled it out and asked if this was the missing card it was like he had been reunited with his long lost brother. I actually thought he was going to cry! He went back to the ATM and then returned with the cash and I was rewarded with a nice tenner tip.
On my way home I always fill up check the back of the cab for rubbish etc and during my inspection I noticed that there was a sprinkling of white powdery crystals on the back seat,now I’m no chemist but I’d wager that they weren’t from a sherbert dab! This may explain why the fella couldn’t remember his pin numbers or where he had put his “lost” card.
That brings us to Thursday night/Friday morning, this started well and I was soon well into a seam of work mostly centered around the West Kensington area. I’d just dropped in Seagrave rd when I was hailed by 2 fellas and a lady and I’ll use the term lady very loosely. They had had a drink and asked for an estimate on a trip to Hampton then on to Dorking via a cash point. I gave them a price and only 2 got in,deciding that it would be cheaper than a hotel room. As we set off I asked if they wanted to go onto Talgarth Rd and run the risk of being stuck in the roadworks that are on the Hammersmith flyover or go via Putney bridge and along Lwr Richmond rd. They decided to avoid the road works. We stopped at a cashpoint in Fulham road and the gent got out and while he was getting his cash she told me that the trip would end in Hampton not Dorking. She also said that they were police officers and that the bloke was her commander and that he was ” a fu^king great bloke who looked after his troops”
When the fella got back in we set off and not long after we had turned onto Putney Bridge she started to ask where we were going,I explained that this is what we decided and then she started giving me grief. I won’t go into exactly what she called me cos you’d think I was exagerating,but suffice to say she used every swear word that I know and a few that I didn’t!
All the way from Lower Richmond Rd to Hampton she never let up. She called all cab drivers cu^ts and said that we were all worthless and didn’t have any self estime. Now I don’t want you to think that I let this barrage go on without retort but she was relentless. I even stopped the cab and told her to get out but the fella said that he’d get her to quiet down but that didn’t happen! When we got to her address she started to moan about he meter price saying that I had fixed it!
In a moment of quiet I told her that I wished I had had a video of her ranting ,so that I could show it to our kids and grand kids so they could see what an arsehole she had made of herself while being pissed and hopefuly that would be enough to put them off drink for life!
She got out and stormed off leaving the “commander” to pay the fare. All I can say is that if he is the calibre of leadership that the police have we are headed for shit street. When they had gone I had to get out and shut the back doors properly and discovered that he had puked up on the floor behind the driver partition,in the only place you can’t see from the drivers seat, and also out of the window all down the side of the cab! the only reason I missed this was because I spent so much time arguing with the mad bint. So if you get hailed by a blonde Carol Thatcher look alike that has taken ugly pills and wants to go to Hampton,beware!
I was told this week that if you are dropping at Luton airport and get caught in the traffic going in,don’t let your punters alight on the roadway because if you are caught on camera you will get a PCN in the post. You have been warned!
Well thats me done for now, I’ll be back soon with more from the world of Del Boy.