Plays Well With Others

The Cabbypants…

Ugh. So this morning I took my car in to get it serviced. Since Wifey™ and I are driving to Las Vegas next week, we figured it’d be a good idea to get the brakes and fluids checked for the wonderful eight hour ride.

I have to be at work at 8:30AM, so I leave the house at 7:45AM for the ten minute ride to the auto shop. Not a big deal. On my way there, I call up the cab company—Yellow Cab, to be exact—to have a cab show up when I arrive. The conversation went as follows:

ME: I need a cab at [auto shop address] in Burlingame.
DISPATCHER: Is that a house or apartment?
ME: It’s a business, it’s called…
DISPATCHER: I know where that is.
ME: Great, I’ll be….

The guy hung up on me. So I get to the auto shop and it’s not open. No biggie because I can drop the key in his “early bird” box. At this point it’s around 8AM. So, I’m standing around waiting for this cab for about fifteen minutes, when the auto shop guy arrives. At this point, I start dealing with him, tell him what’s up with the car, give him the keys and tell him that I called a cab twenty minutes ago and they hadn’t shown up. He basically tells me that they’re pieces of crap and he can call a cab for me.

I wait outside for a few minutes and call up Yellow cab again, ask them where my cab is and have the following conversation:

ME: Hi, I called for a cab about half an hour ago and was wondering when it was going to show up?
DISPATCHER: We sent the cab, it showed up and the business was closed so we left.
ME: Um, well I’m standing here waiting for your cab. Can you send another one?
DISPATCHER: Why should I send another one, so he can arrive and have you not be there?
ME: I’m standing right here, CAN YOU OR CAN’T YOU SEND ANOTHER CAB?
DISPATCHER: Why should I send you another cab, when we already sent you one? Where are you going?
ME: I’m going to [name of my company].
DISPATCHER: He’ll be right there.

Erm. At this point, I was ready to tell the guy to go off and fuck himself. The only reason he sent the cab over was because of where I work, which happens to be the largest employer in the area and a big client of the cab and limo companies.

So, I go in to the auto shop and the owner is asking if I called them up. I’m still steaming and tell him that they’re assholes. At this point, he picks up the phone, calls his cab company and they tell him it’ll arrive in five minutes. So I wait. In the meantime, the Yellow cab arrives and he walks over to them and tells them that I left because another cab got there faster. So I wait. The new cab from VIP Cabs arrives and I’m off to work… finally… about an hour late.

Inside this new cab, the driver is pleasant. He’s not very talkative, but to be honest, I’m not big on the small talk, so a quiet ride is fine with me. He asks where I’m heading and I tell him the name of my company. He calls it in and the dispatcher tells him where it is and reminds him to be sure to give me a business card and to tell me that they’ll be there very quickly. I guess it pays to work for a big company.

Anyhow, the ten minute ride came to about $17.00 which seems like a ripoff, but I gave the guy $20 just for showing up and not driving a YELLOW cab. I made sure I got his business card, because next time I need one, I’m calling VIP cabs and not Yellow cabs.

One thing about cab rides in general is that you feel like you could die at any moment. This guy cut in and out of lanes like we were at the Grand Prix. I’m sure I left some nail marks on the passenger seat, where I was gripping the handle like it was molded to my hand. The only thing that scares the hell out me is a cab ride.

I called my mom to give me a ride back to the shop after work… I’m not dealing with another cab today.

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4 Responses to 'The Cabbypants…'

  1. personal avatar
    Katie | 12 May 2005

    $17 for a ten minute cab ride? Jesus. You all are pricey out there. Although the only time I’ve ever taken a cab was when I was at Illinois State, and it was about $10-12 for a twenty minute ride to the airport. Which of course, I had to pay because I was dating Big E at the time. Actually now that I think of it, I paid for every cab ride we took, which were numerous because I didn’t have a car up there. Ugh. How is it that any story I tell can turn into a “why’d I give up my virginity to such a loser” story. 🙂

    Anyhow… I don’t get why cab drivers drive like crazy people, either. At the PD, we’re the ones who issue the permits — and you have to have a decent driving record (not to mention a clean criminal record) to get one. I guess they figure that once they have the permit, they are good to go and it doesn’t matter if they kill everybody out on the road.


  2. personal avatar
    Katie | 12 May 2005

    The gravatars look better… what’d you do ?


  3. personal avatar
    Greg | 12 May 2005

    Regarding the gravatars, I made a change to one of the settings, so now they aren’t pixellated anymore.

    I think you paid for everything with E. I won’t call him Big E because… well, from what I understand there wasn’t much Big with him. 🙂

    Anyhow, you paid for the hotel, you paid for the cabs, you paid for the McDonalds. I don’t recall if he paid for that hamburger joint that he LOVES or if you had to chip in for that. And you didn’t have to pay for the condoms, since he had his BIG BAG O’ CONDOMS he carried around with him. Oh… so he did have something BIG… his BIG bag of little condoms. 🙂

    Anyhow… how come it’s always fun to make fun of him?


  4. personal avatar
    Katie | 12 May 2005

    Haha. Yeah, there’s something about him… not to mention Treva… to where making fun of him never gets old. They should just get married so we can make fun of them as one entity, rather than separately. Conserve the energy and all. 🙂


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