Source: Taxidriver.ca
I guess the older I get the stuper I get. (yes, stuper… my spellig is getting bad too.) I still haven’t figured out why so many taxi patrons ask for a “flat rate,” instead of going by the metered rate.
A guy got into my cab today. He started complaining right away about another cab driver. He told me he knew the trip normally ran $12.00 on the meter. He said he offered the driver a $10 flat rate. The driver, he claimed, had made a counter offer for a $20 flat rate.
The passenger was offended by this ploy. He felt the driver was trying to rip him off.
I laughed and said, “And you weren’t trying to rip him off by offering only $10 for a ride you knew would cost $12?”
He then revised his original claim, stating that the trip normally ran only $10 after all… and that the driver was of East Indian origin (which, I suppose, was an effort to reinforce his argument.)
It ain’t hard to spot a liar.
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A week or so ago, I had an order on a short one-way street. The passenger got in and asked me to back up (drive in reverse on a one-way street) to the intersection, where I would have had to also back up around the corner into an intersection before proceeding in a westerly direction to the destination.
I replied, “Well, I had better arrange for you to get another cab.”
He was taken aback by what I said and asked for an explanation.
I told him, “Well, it’s obvious to me that what you really want is a crazy cab driver… (All he is risking is a fine, huge increase in insurance premiums, and maybe an accident…. yes, not just a crazy cab driver… but a stupid one. Hmmm. cab driver…. stupid… sort of goes together. So *you* can save the 39 cents it would otherwise cost to go around the block legally.)”
He changed his mind… decided to stick with me… and claimed he didn’t realize the address where I picked him up was on a one-way street. (Duh!)
Hmmm… curious… if he didn’t know it was a one-way street why did he ask me to *reverse* into the intersection rather than simply turn around and go the other way?
It ain’t hard to spot a liar.
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During a severe snow storm last winter I picked up a young lady in the west end who wanted to go to an address in the north end. She told me she only had $10. She asked me to drive her as far as $10 dollars would go and then she would walk the rest of the way.
In view of the weather I took pity on her and told her not to worry about the money. I would take her home even if it cost her more than the $10.
As we continued it occured to me that there was a concrete median blocking access to her address, that I would have to drive a lot further to get to the house, and that I might get stuck on her street.
So I asked her if, instead of taking her directly to her house I could drop her off at the top of her street where the median prevented me from turning. (She would have to walk, perhaps, half a block.)
She replied, “Well…. ok…. but I will have to go to my house to get the money.”
“How odd,” I thought. When she first got in she asked me to drive only as far as $10 would take her. Now she was telling me she had to get the money at the destination.
Oh, I get it… I was supposed to take her until the meter hit $10. She was going to give me a break. She would then walk the rest of the
way, get the $10, walk back to where I was waiting, pay me and then, presumably walk all the way back again. (OR she was only going to rip me off for $10 rather than the whole fare. How considerate. It’s called “sharing.”)
It ain’t hard to spot a liar.
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Regards,
Hans
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T. E. A. M.
Together. Everyone . Achieves. More.
