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The drunk and the creepy
Hi all, I'm not dead! the last few weeks have been madness, with co-workers disappearing all over the place, leaving a bigger workload for me. Fun. Still, the SC's keep on coming, so lets see how many I can remember.
Wait, Don't leave me with her!
Ah, pub close time. Usually the soft, blurry hour around 2am is our busiest time, to the point that we stop serving the rest of the town for about half an hour to ensure the pub crowd gets home before they start punching each other. It was around this time that I picked up a trio of ladies, one of which was clearly extremely inebriated. This took around an hour to deal with, so I'll summarise it by time. For later reference, I was driving a maxi taxi at the time.
0:00 -Pick up at "The River" Pub, take them to address A. All normal so far
0:07 -Drunk woman does not recognise where she is, despite the others trying to convince her to go to bed. There are people in the house and the front door is wide open, but nobody comes out to help.
0:15 - They finally decide to take the drunk woman back to one of their homes to sleep it off.
0:20 - Get to other woman's home, Address B. Still can't coax drunk woman out of car. They get a call from the people at the original place looking for the drunk. Back we go.
0:25 - Arrived back at Address A. Repeat above. Guy who called nowhere to be seen.
0:40 - Off to address C this time. Drunk has fallen asleep by this point. Ladies wake her up and try to get her inside.
0:45 - They give up and pay their fare. Drunk is still complaining loudly in the back. They pay for her fare back to address A and call someone up there to ensure someone will come get her. By this point my patience is running thin.
0:50 - Back to Address A with Drunk complaining loudly the whole way. Pull up and she's fallen asleep again.
Fun fact: taxi drivers cannot touch their passengers. If they fall asleep, we can shout at them all we want, but all we can do is give them a gentle shake of the shoulder and not, as this case demanded, dump a large bucket of ice cold water on them.
0:55 - I give up trying to wake her and nobody in the house has responded to the horn honking, shouting and occasional irritated swear. Cops are called.
1:05 - Cops show up. One of them manages to wake her, it took a lot of shaking. Meanwhile his partner goes into the house, finds the people inside in the same state of useless drunkenness. Thankfully the cops know her and are able to get some sort of response out of her, and try to talk her out if the taxi
1:15 - Cops give up, hoist her up in a boneless fireman's carry, cart her out of the taxi, into the house and deposit her on a couch.
1:20 - Go back to the depot for a coffee, having only one rather underwhelming fare to show for the busy pub close hour.
Surprise!
Pick up an old lady, who gives me the address she wants to go to in a normal enough fashion. Once we get moving, she starts talking in a sort of nonsensical ramble, such as "Diddly up me old shinies" and "Half forward to Tuesday, Charlie". Weird, but she's obviously been drinking so I think nothing of it. Then we get to the address.
Me: Here we are, 123 ABC Street
SC: ooh, I don't remember the garden looking like that
Me: Oh?
SC: yes, and that verandah wasn't there yesterday either
Me: It...what?
SC: One second, I'll see who's home
With that, she's out of the taxi, up the path and at the front door. Now a normal person would be questioning the address they gave at this point, and may knock on the door to see who's there. This woman was certain of the address though, so certain she just opened the front door and marched on in.
There was.. a pause, though that word doesn't do it justice. I expected surprised yelling, maybe even a scream. Instead there was a deathly silence.
A minute or two later, the woman reappeared. This time she was ashen faced, quiet and suddenly completely sober. She gave me an address at the other end of the street and was silent most of the way. As we pulled up (at the correct house this time) she told me what had happened
When she had burst into the house, she had happened upon a young couple, doing exactly the thing young couples do in the privacy of their own home. Queue awkward staring and a slow, embarrassed retreat from the woman.
Wait, Don't leave me with her either!
Pick up a group of young women, including one very old lady among them. they want to go to the pub, so we set off. The old woman is quiet the whole time, seemingly upset about something, while the younger women cluck like mad chickens over her. Get to the pub. Young women pay the fare and jump out. The old woman stays in the back seat, pouting. Once they notice this, they come back and a shouting match ensues, most of it in one of the local aboriginal dialects so I can't understand it. Finally the young women march into the pub without a word to me. The old lady tells me that they have been ignoring her all day, only talking to her when they want money. She had wanted to go home but they took her money for booze and just ditched her in the taxi. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common around here. In the end, the old lady's house was only a couple of streets away, so I dropped her off for free. She's now a regular, travels alone and is a very generous tipper
The Mystery Jar (Insert choir of angels here)
Not a sucky story, but unusual. In Australia, tipping is not a big thing. It not uncommon to find a place where the staff cannot or will not accept tips. So it always comes as a nice surprise when someone hands over a few extra dollars. This one however takes the cake.
I get a call at around 3am for a pickup in Spider street. Once I get there I find a drunk guy wandering in circles in the middle of the street outside the given address. He waves me down and jumps in. He has no money on him but will sort it out when he gets home. Normally this sort of thing isn't on, but his partner is known to the taxis so I let it slide. Take him home and he presents me with the Mystery Jar (More angels). It's an old coffee jar with a pile of loose change in it. Looking in the top I see a lot of silver, Mostly 5 and 10 cent coins. He tells me that there's enough to cover the fare and a bit extra for a tip as well. I accept it and carry on without thinking anything of it till I get back to the depot.
Once there, I open the Mystery Jar and pick out the few copper coins I see for the fare, put the jar aside and go home.
Next day, I set about counting it. Turns out that that mass of silver coins was hiding a core of copper ones! Total tip: $52.35! Whee!
I'm Flattered, But...
Look, please stop poking me. I'm not interested. Why? Firstly because I'm not into guys, but also, neither are you. That's the booze talking, which by the sound of it you've drunk enough to preserve your liver for future generations. What? yes I'm wearing pants, you were poking me in the leg a moment ago. No, I'm not pulling over for any sort of "Sneaky Quicky" I don't care how beautiful you think my happy parts are, no. Please stop saying "I bet you have a beautiful [happy part]"
Error: Weirdness limit exceeded. Passenger expelled unceremoniously onto random sidewalk. Insert brain bleach to continue.
Laser Guided Karma
The biggest fare we do regularly is a run to one of the local mines. On it's own it's a $100 fare. This one happened to my occasional coworker, D
D Picks up SC from the pub, who wants to go to the mine. D informs SC that the fare is $100, and SC is ok with that. Upon arriving at the mine, SC runs out on D. D Calls after SC. As D passes the admin building, a door opens and SC is caught by a large man who turns out to be SC's boss. Boss saw the whole thing. SC doesn't have a job anymore. D laughs all the way home.
Hopefully things can get back to normal around here soon. I'm starting to forget what sleep is.
Wait, Don't leave me with her!
Ah, pub close time. Usually the soft, blurry hour around 2am is our busiest time, to the point that we stop serving the rest of the town for about half an hour to ensure the pub crowd gets home before they start punching each other. It was around this time that I picked up a trio of ladies, one of which was clearly extremely inebriated. This took around an hour to deal with, so I'll summarise it by time. For later reference, I was driving a maxi taxi at the time.
0:00 -Pick up at "The River" Pub, take them to address A. All normal so far
0:07 -Drunk woman does not recognise where she is, despite the others trying to convince her to go to bed. There are people in the house and the front door is wide open, but nobody comes out to help.
0:15 - They finally decide to take the drunk woman back to one of their homes to sleep it off.
0:20 - Get to other woman's home, Address B. Still can't coax drunk woman out of car. They get a call from the people at the original place looking for the drunk. Back we go.
0:25 - Arrived back at Address A. Repeat above. Guy who called nowhere to be seen.
0:40 - Off to address C this time. Drunk has fallen asleep by this point. Ladies wake her up and try to get her inside.
0:45 - They give up and pay their fare. Drunk is still complaining loudly in the back. They pay for her fare back to address A and call someone up there to ensure someone will come get her. By this point my patience is running thin.
0:50 - Back to Address A with Drunk complaining loudly the whole way. Pull up and she's fallen asleep again.
Fun fact: taxi drivers cannot touch their passengers. If they fall asleep, we can shout at them all we want, but all we can do is give them a gentle shake of the shoulder and not, as this case demanded, dump a large bucket of ice cold water on them.
0:55 - I give up trying to wake her and nobody in the house has responded to the horn honking, shouting and occasional irritated swear. Cops are called.
1:05 - Cops show up. One of them manages to wake her, it took a lot of shaking. Meanwhile his partner goes into the house, finds the people inside in the same state of useless drunkenness. Thankfully the cops know her and are able to get some sort of response out of her, and try to talk her out if the taxi
1:15 - Cops give up, hoist her up in a boneless fireman's carry, cart her out of the taxi, into the house and deposit her on a couch.
1:20 - Go back to the depot for a coffee, having only one rather underwhelming fare to show for the busy pub close hour.
Surprise!
Pick up an old lady, who gives me the address she wants to go to in a normal enough fashion. Once we get moving, she starts talking in a sort of nonsensical ramble, such as "Diddly up me old shinies" and "Half forward to Tuesday, Charlie". Weird, but she's obviously been drinking so I think nothing of it. Then we get to the address.
Me: Here we are, 123 ABC Street
SC: ooh, I don't remember the garden looking like that
Me: Oh?
SC: yes, and that verandah wasn't there yesterday either
Me: It...what?
SC: One second, I'll see who's home
With that, she's out of the taxi, up the path and at the front door. Now a normal person would be questioning the address they gave at this point, and may knock on the door to see who's there. This woman was certain of the address though, so certain she just opened the front door and marched on in.
There was.. a pause, though that word doesn't do it justice. I expected surprised yelling, maybe even a scream. Instead there was a deathly silence.
A minute or two later, the woman reappeared. This time she was ashen faced, quiet and suddenly completely sober. She gave me an address at the other end of the street and was silent most of the way. As we pulled up (at the correct house this time) she told me what had happened
When she had burst into the house, she had happened upon a young couple, doing exactly the thing young couples do in the privacy of their own home. Queue awkward staring and a slow, embarrassed retreat from the woman.
Wait, Don't leave me with her either!
Pick up a group of young women, including one very old lady among them. they want to go to the pub, so we set off. The old woman is quiet the whole time, seemingly upset about something, while the younger women cluck like mad chickens over her. Get to the pub. Young women pay the fare and jump out. The old woman stays in the back seat, pouting. Once they notice this, they come back and a shouting match ensues, most of it in one of the local aboriginal dialects so I can't understand it. Finally the young women march into the pub without a word to me. The old lady tells me that they have been ignoring her all day, only talking to her when they want money. She had wanted to go home but they took her money for booze and just ditched her in the taxi. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common around here. In the end, the old lady's house was only a couple of streets away, so I dropped her off for free. She's now a regular, travels alone and is a very generous tipper
The Mystery Jar (Insert choir of angels here)
Not a sucky story, but unusual. In Australia, tipping is not a big thing. It not uncommon to find a place where the staff cannot or will not accept tips. So it always comes as a nice surprise when someone hands over a few extra dollars. This one however takes the cake.
I get a call at around 3am for a pickup in Spider street. Once I get there I find a drunk guy wandering in circles in the middle of the street outside the given address. He waves me down and jumps in. He has no money on him but will sort it out when he gets home. Normally this sort of thing isn't on, but his partner is known to the taxis so I let it slide. Take him home and he presents me with the Mystery Jar (More angels). It's an old coffee jar with a pile of loose change in it. Looking in the top I see a lot of silver, Mostly 5 and 10 cent coins. He tells me that there's enough to cover the fare and a bit extra for a tip as well. I accept it and carry on without thinking anything of it till I get back to the depot.
Once there, I open the Mystery Jar and pick out the few copper coins I see for the fare, put the jar aside and go home.
Next day, I set about counting it. Turns out that that mass of silver coins was hiding a core of copper ones! Total tip: $52.35! Whee!
I'm Flattered, But...
Look, please stop poking me. I'm not interested. Why? Firstly because I'm not into guys, but also, neither are you. That's the booze talking, which by the sound of it you've drunk enough to preserve your liver for future generations. What? yes I'm wearing pants, you were poking me in the leg a moment ago. No, I'm not pulling over for any sort of "Sneaky Quicky" I don't care how beautiful you think my happy parts are, no. Please stop saying "I bet you have a beautiful [happy part]"
Error: Weirdness limit exceeded. Passenger expelled unceremoniously onto random sidewalk. Insert brain bleach to continue.
Laser Guided Karma
The biggest fare we do regularly is a run to one of the local mines. On it's own it's a $100 fare. This one happened to my occasional coworker, D
D Picks up SC from the pub, who wants to go to the mine. D informs SC that the fare is $100, and SC is ok with that. Upon arriving at the mine, SC runs out on D. D Calls after SC. As D passes the admin building, a door opens and SC is caught by a large man who turns out to be SC's boss. Boss saw the whole thing. SC doesn't have a job anymore. D laughs all the way home.
Hopefully things can get back to normal around here soon. I'm starting to forget what sleep is.
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