TAXI HAPPENINGS

When I first started driving in Tampa, before I started going to work at 4am, I would come out at 7 or so. Even then I would hang out around the stadium. Around 3 in the afternoon I got a call to go to the Mons Venus for a credit card fare. I went over there and picked up this guy, dressed very well, and very I mean very drunk. He wanted to go to St. Pete, to the 9th Street bar. That bar has since closed but in those days it was a rough bar. I checked his card and off we went, oh yeah I got him to sign the reciept before we left. He passed out before we got to the interstate. When we got there it took a few minutes to wake him up. He wanted to know how much he owed me. I didn't hesitate, told him nothing, he already paid me. Some of the new drivers like they have now, may not have done that. True he wouldn't have know n the difference until he got his credit card statement. But folks, I learned a long time ago, what goes around comes around. I loved driving a cab before I got sick. Every day was different. Another tale comes to mind, a year or so before I had to quit, I got a call to go to a room for a fare at the Howard Johnson, this was around 5am. I was told to knock on the door. Ha not a chance, not at 5 am and the room was all the way in the back. This young girl came running out with nothing on but a beach towel wrapped around her. She wanted to go to Clearwater. I asked her how she was going to pay for the trip, I could see she didn't have a purse, no nothing. She said she would pay me when we got there. Ha normally I would never do that. A little voice said trust her, so I did. On the way to Clearwater she told me she was afraid of the situation, I already had that figured that. When we got to her house, a huge condo, she said please wait, what a thing to say to me. She came back out with a 100 dollar bill, I told her I didn't have change, told me keep it, she than thanked me for trusting her. Sometime it works out. But believe me not all of the time.
Well faithful followers, more later.