Taxi redux
Nov. 13th, 2006 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringMy cab came to a gentle halt outside the pick-up address and I looked around for my passenger. The little cul-de-sac was deserted. Maybe an hour after sundown on Friday evening - a very busy Friday evening for me, though I wasn't about to admit it to anyone - and this little piece of suburbia was quiet.
I waited a minute then got out of the cab and did a few stretches to uncramp my body. Sitting in the driver's seat for an hour or more at a time is probably not healthy, and though I leap out whenever I get a chance to walk around, inspect the car's exterior, shake out the floor mats and so on, sometimes I just don't have a chance. I've come to relish the arrival of a passenger with flight luggage or a trolley load of groceries, because it gives me an excuse to bounce out and do a bit of lifting.
I don't do the "cab arrives, he blows his horn - I stumble out in the early morn'" bit because other residents might be sleeping, so after giving whoever is inside a chance to react to the sound of the cab arriving, the lights, the engine running, the door opening and closing, I walk up the path to the door. If the passenger isn't standing out on the footpath, looking up and down the street, maybe a worried cellphone on their ear, my guess is that it isn't an urgent trip, and taking a minute or so before I knock on the door is OK.
A female face appeared in answer and broke into a surprise/recognition expression. "Not you again!" she said.
She turned and called to somebody inside, unseen. "Hey, it's that mad cabbie!"
My fame is spreading. I wasn't quite sure how to take this "mad cabbie" business, though. From my point of view, I'm as sane as the next person, and a lot more than some. However, some of my passengers are probably not used to a cabbie like me. Unjaded, enthusiastic, ever-ready supply of lousy puns.
We got into the car and drove off, and I began to remember her. It had been last Thursday, just after a rainstorm, which was still drizzling on as I responded to a hail. Middle-aged couple and a daughter in her twenties. We'd gone to an address in North Canberra, described by the lady as "the prettiest street in Canberra'. I'd been about to comment that any street occupied by this lady would qualify for that title, but my bit of blarney was lost in directions from the father to pull into a driveway.
We didn't chat much on this ride, so I didn't get a chance to find out what, precisely, was the nature of my madness. But I got her there, quickly and efficiently, and I was even able to bring out a smile when i quoted the "prettiest street in Canberra" line back to her.
I do have a bit of a memory, you see, even if mine is the sort that fails me when I'm asked to introduce people. I might have known both parties for years, but still I'm reduced to peering at nametags.
However, I can say that I've now had a few repeat customers. There's the young lady above, there's a tourist who had the misfortune to climb into my cab twice in one night - a particularly ratty night for me, because that was the night that I discovered that the institution he requested was now a building site and the club had been relocated, with much fanfare, several blocks away, something that had slipped my mind until confronted with the evidence - and I've even had one passenger in my cab three times over.
Every night one gentleman takes a cab into Civic to do the midnight until dawn shift at a convenience store. He makes a phone booking and then stands outside his house in a reflective jacket. At that time of the night on a weekday, every taxidriver in town is scratching around for work, so he doesn't have to wait long.
The first time I picked him up, he was just another fare. I got him again the next night, but he didn't remember me. "I see a lot of taxidrivers," he said.
And then again a few nights ago. As soon as I saw the address on the pickup information, I knew who it was, and I didn't have to turn on the side lights to look for house numbers, I just drove down the street at full speed to where I could see his reflective vest. By then I'd worked out the optimum route to get him to his destination with a minimum of distance and traffic lights.
It's nice to have regular customers, even if it's just the luck of the draw. At the very least, it means that people have confidence in the tzxi system.
I waited a minute then got out of the cab and did a few stretches to uncramp my body. Sitting in the driver's seat for an hour or more at a time is probably not healthy, and though I leap out whenever I get a chance to walk around, inspect the car's exterior, shake out the floor mats and so on, sometimes I just don't have a chance. I've come to relish the arrival of a passenger with flight luggage or a trolley load of groceries, because it gives me an excuse to bounce out and do a bit of lifting.
I don't do the "cab arrives, he blows his horn - I stumble out in the early morn'" bit because other residents might be sleeping, so after giving whoever is inside a chance to react to the sound of the cab arriving, the lights, the engine running, the door opening and closing, I walk up the path to the door. If the passenger isn't standing out on the footpath, looking up and down the street, maybe a worried cellphone on their ear, my guess is that it isn't an urgent trip, and taking a minute or so before I knock on the door is OK.
A female face appeared in answer and broke into a surprise/recognition expression. "Not you again!" she said.
She turned and called to somebody inside, unseen. "Hey, it's that mad cabbie!"
My fame is spreading. I wasn't quite sure how to take this "mad cabbie" business, though. From my point of view, I'm as sane as the next person, and a lot more than some. However, some of my passengers are probably not used to a cabbie like me. Unjaded, enthusiastic, ever-ready supply of lousy puns.
We got into the car and drove off, and I began to remember her. It had been last Thursday, just after a rainstorm, which was still drizzling on as I responded to a hail. Middle-aged couple and a daughter in her twenties. We'd gone to an address in North Canberra, described by the lady as "the prettiest street in Canberra'. I'd been about to comment that any street occupied by this lady would qualify for that title, but my bit of blarney was lost in directions from the father to pull into a driveway.
We didn't chat much on this ride, so I didn't get a chance to find out what, precisely, was the nature of my madness. But I got her there, quickly and efficiently, and I was even able to bring out a smile when i quoted the "prettiest street in Canberra" line back to her.
I do have a bit of a memory, you see, even if mine is the sort that fails me when I'm asked to introduce people. I might have known both parties for years, but still I'm reduced to peering at nametags.
However, I can say that I've now had a few repeat customers. There's the young lady above, there's a tourist who had the misfortune to climb into my cab twice in one night - a particularly ratty night for me, because that was the night that I discovered that the institution he requested was now a building site and the club had been relocated, with much fanfare, several blocks away, something that had slipped my mind until confronted with the evidence - and I've even had one passenger in my cab three times over.
Every night one gentleman takes a cab into Civic to do the midnight until dawn shift at a convenience store. He makes a phone booking and then stands outside his house in a reflective jacket. At that time of the night on a weekday, every taxidriver in town is scratching around for work, so he doesn't have to wait long.
The first time I picked him up, he was just another fare. I got him again the next night, but he didn't remember me. "I see a lot of taxidrivers," he said.
And then again a few nights ago. As soon as I saw the address on the pickup information, I knew who it was, and I didn't have to turn on the side lights to look for house numbers, I just drove down the street at full speed to where I could see his reflective vest. By then I'd worked out the optimum route to get him to his destination with a minimum of distance and traffic lights.
It's nice to have regular customers, even if it's just the luck of the draw. At the very least, it means that people have confidence in the tzxi system.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 02:04 am (UTC)Seriously though--that really made me giggle. This was a specially good entry and I'm sitting here with a big smile, still. You are a wonderful man. I'm so glad to 'know' you.