You Want to Go Where?

Sunday morning when I came out to work, it didn't appear as if there were very many calls on the dispatch system. Certainly, none of them were anywhere near me. So I went on down to the Greyhound Bus Station to see what I could scare up. I wasn't disappointed.

As soon as I pulled onto the property, I saw that no other taxis were waiting for fares, so I was first up. I pulled the cab right up in front of the door, and sat back to await my first fare of the day. I didn't have to wait long, nor did I have to go very far to get that person where he was going.

Upon my return to the Greyhound I found that I was first up again. Once again I pulled up right in front of the door to wait for a fare. But this time, rather than kicking back in the cab, I got out to stretch my legs. Three cabs pulled in almost immediately, so I knew that I'd have someone to talk to if the wait was long. But, getting out of the cab, and leaning against the trunk must have been interpreted as an invitation to have a conversation, as a leather-jacketed man made a beeline over to my cab.

But I was wrong about him wanting to have a conversation. He wanted to talk alright: about how to get him from where he was, to where he wanted to go. The problem was, while where he was could be described in the physical world, where he wanted to go seemed to be more in the realm of an intellectual concept. The Phoenix Greyhound Bus station, having a particular address and cross streets, could be located on a map. His destination, lacking even an accurate proper name, could not be located, even in his own mind.

You see, where he wanted to go was the hotel where he had a reservation and a confirmation number, which he showed me written down a piece of paper. But he couldn't remember the name of the hotel.

"I want to go to the AmeriBest Hotel. Do you know where it is?", he asks.

"No, but I have a phone book, I can look up the address."

"You don't need to do that, I have the phone number right here," and showed me the piece of paper again.

I dialed the number, and wasn't surprised to find it out of service.

"The number's disconnected, sir."

"Well, maybe it isn't AmeriBest, maybe it America's Best."

Well, maybe it is, but 'America's Best' isn't listed in the phone book either, and I tell the guy that. Then I get the bright idea to ask some of the other cabbies if they might have a clue to where the guy wants to go. After consulting one cabbie who actually had what appeared to be a list of Phoenix area hotels, I thought that maybe where to guy wanted to go was 'America's Best Value Inn' in Tempe. The guy said it sounded familiar, he wasn't sure, but he was willing to take a chance. So we drove out to Tempe.

I had a nice conversation with the man, who's name turned out to be Eric. He had just come up from Benson, in southern Arizona, to start a new job with a trucking company. He would be staying at the hotel overnight, and in the morning, someone from the company would pick him up and take him to the truck yard, where he would pick up the semi-truck that he would be driving. He said he sure hoped that the hotel we were going to was the right one, otherwise, he didn't know what he'd have to do.

"Maybe next time write down the name and address of the hotel before leaving home?", I thought.

"Well, sir, if it's not the right place, there's lots of other places close by. I wouldn't worry about anything," I said.

After a leisurely ten minute drive, we pulled into the America's Best Value Inn. At this point the meter was at about $18.00. Eric went inside to see if he was in the right place. After a minute, I joined him. It turned out he wasn't in the right place. He did have a reservation at an America's Best Value Inn. But it was clear on the other side of Phoenix, as far west of the Greyhound as the one in Tempe was east of it.

After I jotted down the address of the other place, Eric and I hit the road again. This time we had a leisurely twenty-minute ride, but the conversation was still good. Eric wasn't mad at me for taking him to what turned out to be the wrong place. After all, he said, I did the best I could with the information I had. He didn't even seem to be too upset that by his own actions he had effectively tripled his cab fare. He seemed to be one of those perpetually calm people who take what comes their way, making no attempt to control what he can about what goes on around him.

Arriving at the other America's Best Value Inn, the meter now read $48.00. Eric gave me three twenties, and asked for two dollars back. Ten on forty-eight? Not a bad tip at all!

"I want you to have the extra ten for helping me as much as you did, making the phone calls and all. Thanks!"

"Well thank you, Eric. Good luck on the new job. Maybe I'll see you around some time."

With that, I got in the cab, and drove away. Back to the Greyhound. Where I was again instantly first up.

But I was think about how I was going to tell this story, and how I would end it. I decided it needed a moral, so I spent all the rest of Sunday composing it. And here it is:

"Everyone will eventually get to where they are going. But if they write down the name and address of their destination, they'll get there much. much quicker. And much, much cheaper!"

Thanks for listening.

Sincerely,

The Cab Guy

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Date A Hot Phoenix Stripper!

I am just wondering: how many of you guys out there would like to date a HOT PHOENIX STRIPPER?

This isn't the setup to one of my ridiculous Cab Guy jokes: it's a legitimate question!

As your Cab Guy, having driven the mean streets of Phoenix for ten years, I have had the opportunity to meet literally hundreds of HOT PHOENIX STRIPPERS! I have become friends with many of them.

Do you want to know what most of them have in common? Believe it or not, they have trouble meeting decent men! That's right, I can hardly believe it myself! They're always asking me, "What do I have to do to meet a decent guy?"

Just tonight, my friend, Danielle, asked me this same question. You know what I told her?

"Danielle, I'll find you a decent guy!"

I've agreed with Danielle to set her up on a date with a decent guy. Do you want to be that guy? Help me out.

If you're out there, and would like to get to know a girl, not for what she does for a living, but who she is inside, here's want you need to do...

Send me an email describing your proposed date with Danielle. I'll show her the all the emails that I get, and she'll pick her favorites. My recommendation: be creative and romantic!

Send your email to me at Supercabbie@gmail.com, with the subject header, "I Want to Date Danielle."

Sincerely,

The Cab Guy

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Ships in the Night

Have you ever heard the expression, "Like two ships passing in the night?" It's supposed to be romantic code for a situation where two people who are meant to be together never quite meet up. I used to think it was just a tired Hollywood cliche. But not anymore...
Done with a day of trying to grind out a living on the mean streets of Phoenix, I decided to try my luck over at the Greyhound Bus Station cab stand. At about eight in the evening, I pulled up to the station, saw another driver in the first position, so I parked in the "on-deck" area. I got out of the car, and walked over to the other driver, to catch up on the bus schedule, and the events of the day.

While we were talking, a young man of about twenty to twenty-three years of age came up to me. As the other driver was sitting in his cab's driver's seat, all ready to go, I tried to make the sale for him:

"Taxi, Sir?"

His answer was not a no, nor a yes either, but a geographic inquiry:

"How far is Tempe?"

"Depends on where you want to go in Tempe. But the closest part is about five or six miles away."

"Is there a Ross in Tempe?"

"You mean the clothing store?"

"Right."

"Yes, there is, at the Arizona Mills Mall, at the northeast corner of I-10 and Baseline Road."

From here, the conversation starts to go all over the map, so I'm going to cut it down quite a bit for the sake of brevity and sanity. Apparently he was supposed to meet his girlfriend, who worked at the Ross Clothing Store, and wanted to make sure he went to the right one. Later events proved that as our conversation was all over the map, so was his thinking. He should have just stayed at the station.

Opening the first-up driver cab's passenger door, I said,

"So does this mean that you need a taxi to the Ross, sir?"

"Yes."

"Hop in," I said, pointing to the driver. "He'll take care of you."

As they started to take off, I walked back to my cab, to move it into the first-place spot. After doing so, I hung out around the side of the cab for a few minutes, then went inside the station for a moment. What for, I can't remember. Age, and, a hundred thousand road miles per year will do that to you.

I came outside to see a woman talking to a gentleman, who pointed me out and said,

"I think he's the driver."

I sprung into action.

"Need a cab ma'am?"

"Yeah, I need to go to the Arizona Mills Mall."

Opening the passenger door for the cab, I wondered if I had just heard her right. Was it possible... Naw! Couldn't be. It only happens in the movies. The woman, also of about age twenty to twenty-three got in the cab. I closed the door, and went around to the driver's side. Settling my more than amble rear-end into the seat cushions, I started the engine, and we were off.

"You know, the last guy who left out of here also went to the Mills Mall."

"Your last fare went to the Mall?"

"Well, he wasn't my fare, another driver took him. But I talked to him for a couple of minutes. He said he had to meet his girlfriend at Ross."

"I work at Ross!", she exclaimed."

Just then her cell phone rang. She had a brief conversation that ended with the words,

"I'll be there soon. Yeah, I love you too."

I resumed our conversation.

"Wow. That's kind of weird. What a coincidence. Some cabbie takes a guy to Ross, and you work there."

"The guy on the phone was someone I was supposed to meet at the Greyhound. I've been there since six o'clock, waiting for him to show up! I guess he left before I even got there, because he called me just a few minutes ago, and said he was at the Ross at Arizona Mills. But what's odd, I don't even work at that store. I used to, but not anymore."

Well, it was about eight-twenty right now.

"No, you must have misunderstood me. The fellow I was talking to left the Greyhound not ten minutes before you walked up to my cab. And you were there since six? What time was his bus supposed to have arrived."

"Five o'clock. For a while I thought maybe he had missed his bus, but just now on the phone he told me his bus got in on time, and he had been there waiting for me. He thought I worked at that Ross, and decided to just go meet me there."

"And you've been there since six? And didn't see him? Couldn't you have called him on his cell phone?"

"No, he doesn't have one. He called me from the phone of one of the Ross employees. They remember who I am, and must have trusted him."

"So let me get this straight," I said. "You two were going to meet at the bus station. His bus got there at five o'clock, and he was on it. You got there at about six, and never saw him. But he was there the whole time?"

"Yeah. Strange, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Just like two ships passing in the night," I thought.

Further conversation revealed that they had only seen each other once, several months ago, and she really only knew him from pictures and phone conversations. He came to visit her, I guess so they could get to know each other better. She told me that she had circled the station several times, and even had him paged, to no avail. Eventually, she gave up, and was about to go home, when he called her on her phone. Because she had been dropped off at the Greyhound by a friend, she needed a cab to go meet him at the Ross, across the street from where she lived, which is how I entered the picture.

Pulling into the mall, I went over to the Ross store. The young man I had last seen at the Greyhound, some thirty minutes ago, was sitting on a bench outside. The woman handed me a twenty for a sixteen dollar fare, and said to keep the change. Thanking me, she started to get out of the cab, then paused and said,

"I bet you see this type of thing all the time, don't you?"

"No ma'am, this is a new one to me. It's funny, and kind of romantically screwy all at the same time. Thanks for your business. I hope you two have a nice life. This will be quite a story for your grandchildren!"

She giggled and closed the door. I drove away, back to the Greyhound, laughing or giggling almost the whole way there. The experience had made my night.

I'm glad those two found each other. How many missed opportunities have we all experienced, because our ships had passed us in the night?

Sincerely,

The Cab Guy

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The Scabbie Cabbie

Hey, how are you doing? I'm glad to see you! Hop in, let's go for a ride. Don't worry about the meter: this one's on me.

The company that I work for has a contract with the local Greyhound Bus Station for one of its brands (I'll just refer to this brand as XYZ Cab) to be the exclusive supplier for on-site cab service. What this means is that any driver of an XYZ Cab, if driving a properly authorized XYZ Cab unit, and in possession of a special ID, may sit on the cab stand at the Greyhound Bus Station, and wait in line for customers. All these conditions must be met in order for the driver to wait on the stand. If for some reason he forgot his ID, or doesn't have one in the first place, he may not be there, even if driving an XYZ Cab. Drivers of the company's other brands may not use the stand. Likewise, drivers from other companies may not use the stand.

As a matter of fact, if they're not "stand qualified" they may not even be on the property at all, unless dropping someone off; in this event, they must leave as soon as their passenger exits the cab. If, in the event that a Greyhound customer calls another company to pick them up, that driver may enter the property in order to pick up that particular customer, but must then promptly leave.

Greyhound, because they own the property, has the right to control who has casual access to their property and customers, and dictate the terms of cab driver qualifications. They recognize that some people may not like XYZ CAB, so of course, those people have the option of using other brands, if they initiate the call. I think this is a good system. XYZ Cab is one of the largest brands in the Phoenix market, and one of the most reputable. We who are stand-qualified drivers self-police the activities of ourselves, and others who may attempt to circumvent the rules of the site. We do this to protect our company's investment in their partnership with Greyhound, and to ensure a high-quality level of service. Our drivers, on average, have not just good, but excellent, driving records; our cabs are properly licensed and insured; and our cars are maintained to very high standards. I wish the same could be said of every other cab company in the Phoenix Metro market, but it can't.

I happen to think that the customer has the right to choose any cab company they wish. If not mine, fine - bust out a quarter for the phone, and call some other company. Just remember, that other company that charges twenty or thirty cents less per mile may not maintain its cabs as well as we do. Or carry proper insurance. Or ensure that they have safe drivers. When the newspapers report problems in the taxi industry, our company is typically not named as having any violations (usually, any noted violations are minor ones), and is routinely held up, with another large company, as a model of the industry.

That's what your extra twenty cents per mile buys: safety and reliability. And more than that: a certain level of security. Some of the "scab cabs" that try to sneak in are even cabs at all. They're just private cars owned by private drivers, who may not even have valid driver's licenses, or even any kind of insurance, let alone a proper level of coverage.

So why did I bring all of this up? To provide some background, context if you will, for the real story: The Scabbie Cabbie.

This last Sunday afternoon, I was first in line down at the Greyhound, waiting for a fare. To help prevent scab cab "scooping" (which is when an unauthorized cab attempts to steal a fare), the first guy in line parks his cab right in front of the door. (Up to an additional three other cabs may park about twenty-five yards away in specially marked spaces.) So there I am, waiting for the opportunity to make a little scratch, when I notice a cab from another company (which has had numerous Weights and Measures violations) parked at the far end of the lot. This is absolutely unacceptable, but I'm not one to jump froggy right off. I flashed my lights at him several times, waited a minute, and flashed my lights again, thinking that he'd realize that he'd been spotted, take the hint, and hit the road. He didn't.

Generally, I would have preferred to let the Greyhound security officer deal with the infraction, so that it wouldn't look personal, but I couldn't find him. So I walked over to the other driver, to remind him he couldn't stay on the lot, whatever the reason. (Now that I think of it, this last isn't strictly true: it is possible that a cabbie might bring someone to the station to pick up some baggage, or a friend; that customer would then exit the cab, conduct their business, and then get back in the same cab and leave. If this was the case, the driver would leave his meter on to show what he was doing. If anyone complained, all he'd have to do would be to go get his customer, and have that person confirm his story.) I noticed that he was on his cell phone, but his meter was not turned on. To be polite, I waited for him to finish his call, then I started to talk.

"You know you can't stay here, don't you?"

"Fist-you, I'll do what I want. I dropped a guy off here, and I'm waiting to see if he can get a ticket," the scabbie cabbie says to me. "I have the right to drop people off, or pick them up if they call me!"

Two things here. In the first place, I didn't appreciate that the very first word out of his mouth was "Fist." But I maintained my cool. In the second place, unless the ticketing machines are broken, you can always get a ticket. As a matter of fact, this is true even if the machines are broken: Greyhound staff will hand-write a ticket if need be. So this was a pathetic lie: I know the guy isn't coming back. But I maintained my cool.

"Of course you're absolutely correct on those points," I reply. (I actually did phrase it that way. Sometimes I'm subject to "putting on airs.") "The problem is, you dropped him off, and until, and if, he calls you back, you have to leave. I know you know this. Please leave the property, and wait off site for his call."

He has to leave: it's not just a dumb rule. This is to prevent people from just walking up to him, whom he can then claim as "the customer I just dropped off." Besides Greyhound wants it this way, and, like I said, that's their right.

"Fist you, you can't tell me what to do. I go where I want, and do what I want! Now just take your fat ass back to your cab, and leave me alone.

Again with the F-bomb, and a personal attack. Now it's on!

"Okay, fine, I'll just have security handle this, you immature, foul-mouthed little child."

I turned to walk away. He started his car, and proceeded to leave the lot, but I guess he couldn't resist a parting shot.

"Fat Ass!"

Okay. It's true, I have a fat ass. I don't deny it. I'm not proud of it, but it doesn't really bother me. The way I see it, if you know I have a fat ass, it meant you looked at my fat ass. Like they say in show business: a bad review is still a review!

"Thanks for noticing. I appreciate it!," was my parting shot.

You might think that would be the end of it, but if you've read any of my other stories, you know it isn't.

As luck would have it, I immediately secured a fare, and left the property, turning right onto the street, and then moving over to make a left turn. Scabbie Cabbie was several cars ahead. He must have noticed me, because after making the turn, he moved into the right hand lane, and let me pass him on the left. I expected an uncomplimentary remark as I passed, but didn't get one. After I passed, he pulled in behind me. I could guess what he was doing, and you probably can, too, especially if you know, as some of you do, that the phone number of the company complaint line is pasted on my rear bumper.

Within a few minutes, my dispatcher asked me to call the Road Supervisor. The coincidence was exquisite. It had to be about the scabbie cabbie. I was not disappointed.

After informing me of the complaint, in which the other driver characterized his own behavior as polite, and mine as foul-mouthed and out of control, he asked if I had any response.

So I told him my side of the story. You know what I mean: the truth.

Well, of course he believed me, and told me not to worry about it.

"I figured it was something like that," he said. "But I have to investigate every complaint, even if on the face of it, it smells fishy. You did absolutely the right thing. Just do it that way every time, and we'll be able to keep things under control down there!"

The final score at the end of the game? Your Cab Guy: 1; Scabbie Cabbie: 0!

A win always feels good.

Well, here we are, back where I picked you up. Now you know why the ride was free: you didn't actually get anywhere!

Thanks for listening, please exit on the curbside, and I hope that you have a nice day!

Sincerely,

The Cab Guy

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