Update to "Equal Opportunity."

Turns out that The Grocery Shopper is not actually mentally handicapped and actually has brain damage from a coma. The reason for the coma: a Blood Alcahol Level of 2.8 and a speed of 80 mph a couple of years ago.

Hey Ladies!!!

I think I have figured out one of the reasons for the gender divide, at least in English-speaking cultures.

It's the use of the words "sir" and "ma'am."

Sir, obviously, is masculine and can denote a male of any age whom one does not know the name of. Respectful, quick, and easy. It's perfect.

Ma'am, on the other hand, denotes maturity, which can be a problem for some members of the female population, and is at very least, politely avoided by anyone with the smallest amount of tact, (or someone in a cab, trying to get a tip.)

Even the derivatives of Ma'am; Miss, Mrs, and Mizz are just as, if not more, off-putting. From there you can only reduce it to "Lady." Which, depending on your generation, conjures memories of either Jerry Lewis or the Beastie Boys screaming, "Hey Lady(ies)!!"

So what's a poor cabdriver to say when he wants to get the attention of a 30 something female whom he doesn't know the name of and needs to communicate the confirmation of a pick up time from across a parking lot to?

Hey You!!!

Naw, only joking, I used, "excuse me," but it made me wonder if there was anything to the argument that women have no identifier that is respectful yet still not age-identifying.

Oh well, not a big deal as far as gender politics (or anything for that matter) go, just a general observation.

Not unlike the observation made by drunk-dub regarding the unseasonably nice weather, "Well, this Global Warming thing is turning out to be alright, ain't it?"

He was serious. Guess he didn't hear (or rather doesn't care) about the Polar Bears.

A Visit from Santa's State Trooper.

Hope everyone has had a very Merry Christmas (at least everyone who cares to.) I had the day off and went to spend the it with my parents who live an hour north on Highway Sixty-five.

The speed limit on Highway 65 just happens to be 55, which can be a bit of a problem when you see a sign that reads 65 and automatically assume that it is the speed limit.

Sing with me now, "Over the river and through the woods to receive a 186 Dollar speeding ticket."

Even better than the visit from Santa's State Trooper on Christmas day is the date I have in Cupid's Court Room on Valentine's Day to contest my season of giving.

This is what I get for daydreaming of a White Christmas while I am driving.

Happy Holidizzle!

Working the morning shift on Christmas Eve Day could be a lot worse. Most of the college students are out of town, most of the Grandmas are with their families, and there was only one hardcore drinker who wanted to go to the bar at noon on a Sunday.

So, what could I possibly have to write about?

Only the greatest Christmas sentiment that I have ever heard:

"It wouldn't be Christmas without dinner at McDonald's," She said as we picked up her Big Mac, Diet Coke, and Freedom (her word) Fries...WITHOUT SALT!!!

God Bless us, everyone; indeed.

Schmoozin'

Having had the experience of driving taxi in a small town before, I asked what my employer referred to as "a totally understandable question," my first day of training.

"So who are the regular customers who no one ever wants to take? You know...the ones that can never be pleased and end up complaining about everything."

Old Lady A. was the answer I received that day, and I had been kept away from her until tonight out of fear that I would quit after driving her.

So, you might be able to understand that I was a little apprehensive when I found out that she would be my last fare of the night. Yes, even big, mean, bald men who have been around the world can be afraid of little old ladies.

First off, like any hard to please costumer in any field of the service industry, she had the initial demands to be met. In my case, this meant picking her up in the back alley entrance of her house.

It should be stated at this point that while I am doing fairly well at learning all the ins and outs of this small town, I am not, however, very familiar with any alleyway except for the one I park my car in when I get home at night.

I was super-fantastically-aggravatingly-nice to her as she approached the vehicle, even going so far as opening the door, holding out my hand for her to hold, and using the hardly-ever-appropriate prefix: MIZZ.

On the way, Old Lady A. could not find anything to not complain about. Whether it was the small piece of trash that had blown into her yard, the bump of the car as I slowly exited the alley, the route I took to get her to the grocery store, or the parking lot at said grocery store.(Actually, I'm with her on that one. I'd say twenty percent of my calls involve that grocery store and the parking lot is indeed a death trap.)

I schmoozed the whole way, trying to get on her good side and seeing if maybe I could change her mood.

Which she must have liked cause at the end of the day, the only tip I got was from her. Now, this does not say anything about my service, this meerly speaks to the idea of tipping in the average small town Midwesterner's head.

Upon getting back to the office to cash out for the night the dispatcher asked how the ride went, chuckling. I told him that everyone should spend time with and old person like that at least once a week. He had never heard a diagnosis of Old Lady A. that resembled that before and I elaborated,

"You need to talk to people like that so that you can see exactly what not to become when you get old."

Me? I'll be curmudgeonly, grumpy, and frail, but by God's Grace, I don't want to be bitter.

Are you Ready for the Country?

Being that it is the season of giving and stuff, I shouldn't have been too surprised that one of the elderly ladies that we at the taxi company transport everyday gave all the drivers and employees gifts. I will admit though, that I was shocked to find a nice twenty dollar bill in the card I got from her, which was identical in shape, color, and content as the rest of the employees' cards.

Happy Holidays indeed.

I don't know how to say that she is very nice for doing that without it sounding like a cliche, so won't even speculate, except for pointing out that this is one old lady will never ever be late for a Bridge game, EVER.

Unfortunately, the good will and mood would be strained through the rest of the shift, as hard as that may be to comprehend.

I hate the Wisconsin countryside.

I should say that I love the nice long curvy roads that you can get lost on during a Sunday afternoon and then find yourself five miles away from where you started, two hours later. The kind of roads that can only be found in Wisconsin.

What I mean is, PROFESSIONALLY, I hate the Wisconsin countryside.

Particularity at night.

After about a half hour of driving down mile long driveways, I finally found the one I was looking for. Up a winding gravel road into a grass yard with no definable driveway except for where the tire tracks had decimated the grass all the way up to the garage.

Only one source of light peaked through the cracks of the boarded up windows covered with plastic sheeting. The house looked as though it had been being remodeled since the early nineties with all the lumber stacked up outside and visible carpentry tools strewn about.

...And of course a very large, vary loud, very harry dog.

I waited outside for about two minutes, but wanting to get on with the night, I went up to the door and knocked. Almost removing the door from it's hinges. This made the dog bark ever more, not to mention jump up against the door. I don't know, maybe the dog was trained to do that so that the owner wouldn't be bothered with putting the door back on it's hinges. I doubt it though.

The thought that I may be in the wrong place occurred to me when I realized that I was in the middle of nowhere, trying to talk to the inhabitant of a decrepit house, with an address that was told to me by somebody who isn't the best reader over a CB radio that really kind of sucks.

The vision of a very large man with a very large beard and an even larger shotgun occurred to my imagination the moment I heard the guy yell at his dog to shut the hell up.

Fortunately, a small man with a grey handlebar moustache poked his head out the door and said, "'bout damn time you got here. I was supposed to get to the Red's Repair to pick up my ride an hour ago. You do know where Red's Repair is, don't you?"

Red's Repair was also in the Wisconsin Countryside. Go figure.

Equal Opportunity

"I can tell that you guys are a bunch of Equal Opportunity Employers down there at the cab stand cause you got a bunch of handicapped people running the show and you laugh at them."
-The Grocery Shopper

If that sounds a bit befuddling to you, than you should try to imagine what it would be like to try and come up with an answer while driving through heavy fog at rush hour. (...and yes, small towns have rush hours, especially when they're only a half hour outside a major metropolitan area.)

I stammered like an idiot.

The live-in caregiver, who looked an awful lot like Sam Elliot in a Miller Lite hat, tried to bail me out by saying, "awww come on, he was just five minutes late, give the guy a break."

Thanks Sam...loved you in Roadhouse!

Trouble is, I wasn't late, but whatever, one never gets to far when arguing with the mentally handicapped. It's like trying to have an argument with a five year old, or a Creationist.

If you think that last statement to be offensive, I apologize, but I will also point out that you probably don't spend time with a lot of mentally handicapped people.

The entire ride to the grocery store was threatening to ruin my day, until we came upon the subject of women. He seemed to be of a better disposition when I assured him that I would do my best to find him a "sugar mama." (My words.)

Upon picking the pair up from the grocery store for the return ride home, the care-giver told me, as I helped him put the groceries in the trunk, that it was no wonder that the couldn't get a caregiver to stay with him for more than three months.

What a happy household.

The rest of the day was far less tragic except for one instance when I was dropping an elderly lady off at her group home. I was mentioning something about going to the grocery store after my shift to pick up a loaf of bread when she brought up that she was a mother of eight and had always made biscuits for her kids rather than buying bread. When she tried to make them earlier today she couldn't remember how. "Oh it's a shame to grow old and watch your mind begin to go. I just sat down and cried...but I'll be picking up a recipe tommarow from a friend."

She laughed at herself after confessing some of her personal life to a complete stranger, and went about her day as if it was an opportunity, rather than a gift.

Adversity, it seems, takes many forms, but if you think that her story is sad, you're looking at it in the wrong way. While most jobs in the American workforce are equal opportunity, growing old isn't, necesarily. We should all be so lucky to forget stuff when we're old.

Holy Crap!!! What a nice day!

Just a beautiful day; mid-December and temperatures ten degrees above freezing are a boon if you have to drive a lot and worry a bit about the weather at times. The temperature also acts as a kind of "good will enema." Everyone just kind of walks outside, breathes it in; and upon realizing that the breath doesn't hurt or change they're body temperature, they smile.

Sundays are great as well...drive a couple old ladies to church, take Wheelchair M. to the movies, listen to some "Prairie Home Companion," and call it a day.

The part of the day that was the best, though, was when I saw the first fare I ever had in this town, the east coast fella who's habitating the rehab facility. Saw him driving his bike home from work sporting a Bosox hat and a smile. Taking in the beautiful day, and hopefully new found sobriety.

...and with that, here's to tomorrow. Hope it's as good as today, even though I doubt I will receive a can of Root Beer for a tip, or here Garrison Keillor's voice, or here a mother tell her child when the child questions the door of the church that they're being dropped off at, "Child! Has it really been that long since you've been here?"

Buy the Lord a round.

Let's say that you drove truck for 40 to 50 years. Now let's say that you are a man who has out lived your wife. Let us also assume that you live in the same town you grew up in and have never really traveled that far out of the region. (Except for when you were driving your truck, but that doesn't count. Not really.)

If all these examples pointed to you than you might be a passenger I had today. Drunk W.

Drunk W. (Drunk-dub for short) is a regular, and after only working for a week and a half we are already on a first name basis. He's a really nice old man if you can get by the fact that he looks like he has been living in an ashtray for 25 years. Drunk-dub frequents one of the many local bars...and I mean frequently. He usually goes home, cocked off his rocker, at about four in the afternoon, so that he wont miss his programs.

Oh by the way, drunk-dub smells bad. Really freakin bad. (Worse than Drunk K. from a couple blogs ago.)

After the first time I drove Drunk-dub home, he kind of stayed in my thoughts for the rest of the night. I kept noticing that my thoughts would stray to him and how sorry I felt for his situation.

As it turns out, I could have spent my time better feeling sorry for myself, or Kevin Federline, or the Republican Congress or ANYBODY ELSE, cause Drunk-dub is in no need of sympathy.

I picked him up at four from his bar today, but just before he sauntered out to the cab, the dispatcher came over the radio requesting that I double up him and another fare coming from Pizza Hut. For those of you who are used to city cabs, you have to remember that this company is run and paid for by the town, and is considered a 'shared-ride taxi.'

Dunk-dub is in his usual 'spirits' and is talking my ear off even before he gets his bad leg in the car and has no problem sharing his ride with whoever we have to pick up at Pizza Hut.

Unfortunately the two fifteen year old girls who came out of the hut expecting a nice clean-smelling, unemotional, quiet ride home didn't feel the same way.

Public Transportation. The Great Leveler.

I would have felt sorry for them had they not acted like, you know, fifteen year old midwestern girls, but as soon as they entered the car I could feel the tarnished sense of entitlement and the disdain.

Drunk-dub could too.

To his credit, he ignored them completely and focused his attention to me, (Thank GOD!!!) and started in on the portion of his life story where he had left off on our last ride together.

It's only a three to five minute ride to his house, but somehow he managed to mention his former career, his deceased wife, his estranged son, how his town is going to hell, how the world is going to hell, and why his place is so hard to find in that time. All in grand drunken rambling.

The best part, though, was when he defended his lifestyle.

"Look! I'm sixty five years old, retired, a widower, and bored. I drink. A lot. You know, it's safe to say that I'm trying to drink myself to death."

"But why not? I've had a great life. I loved my job. I loved my wife. ...and now that they're both gone...there doesn't seem to be much more of interest for me. So I said forget that whole "going out gracefully" thing. (I'm serious, he did the whole fingers-in-the-air-quotation-thing.) I'm going out doing what I want to do, I'm taking the cab, not hurting anyone, not living offa anyone. I'm going to die like I want to cause there ain't no one left to please except me and the Lord and when I get up to heaven I'm going to buy the Lord a round for being so good to me."

He thought it was was pretty funny when I said that it might get expensive seeing as Jesus and his disciple might be there as well.

At that moment (like he was timing it for effect) we arrived at his place. He paid me, got out, looked at the two young girls and said, very gentlemanly, "ladies." then looked at me and closed the door, but as the door closed I could here what sounded like a cross between a drunken cackle and a boyish giggle.

I drove the girls home.

"Oh my GAWD! Did you smell that?"

"I know...GROSS!!!"

All I could say to them was that once you got past the smell, he is a pretty sweet guy, and I have to admit, given the situation, I can't think of a better way to go out.

Sweetly drunk, not hurting anyone, creeping the hell out of the local youth.

God, I hope my future wife outlives me.

50-50

"One can either be adaptable or driven, generally not both. The people who are, are usually better off than most."
-Wheelchair M.

Sitting in his wheelchair with his legs crossed like some kind of shaman of the disabled, Wheelchair M. spits some of the most astute observations I've heard in a long time. He even focused his attention on me when we started talking about hobbies and about how one has to keep their mind occupied, or lose it.

He maintained that that's what crossword puzzles are for. I told him that even though I'm not the dullest crayon in the box, I officially suck at crossword puzzles. To this he observed that I'm probably quite terrible at Chess. This is correct and I asked him how he figured that. "Tunnel-vision. You see the best answer or move that occurs to you immediately and act on it, shutting out other possible avenues."

Spot on. I've been made by a guy hitching a ride to a bar to play magic cards.

Other than Wheelchair M, my cab was habitated with various other residents of this small bedroom community tonight. The woman with the sweet leather jacket with REALLY long fringes that paid me in dimes; the elementary ed major who complained about an argument she got into with an eight year old; the elderly stroke victim, Wheelchair C, who actually used his cane today to go get some acupuncture.

The last run of the night was the most interesting though. Student A. missed his regular ride home, and was able to finagle the dispatcher to bend the rules a bit...we should have been closing, locking up, and going home; but what are you going to do, you know? It's cold out there.

On the way, Student A. and me exchange military stories. He was in the Army something like ten years ago, stationed in Bosnia. He asked how I was adjusting to civilian life. To which I told him that everything is going as well as it possible could be. Which is entirely true.

I could tell, in the corner of my eye, that he was sizing me up. I asked him, "What?" He started in on how it took him a long time to really adjust to being a civilian. About how he had come up with the notion that you have to come up with at least a 50-50 percentile of the good things you look back on as well as the bad. He said that until he could do that, he carried around a bitterness that came out in weird ways and at weird times, directed at those he was closest to.

"It doesn't matter what you did or where you were stationed, the whole 'I own you' mentality, and having to listen to stupid people and having them make you do meaningless crap is enough to really look back at the whole experience with bitterness. Not because of what you had to do, but because of what normal people didn't."

"I was going around holding onto all this BS about how I had to do all this stuff when no one I knew had to go through any of it."
-Student A.

Not the most eloquent sentence I have ever heard, but in a strange way I knew exactly what he was talking about, and can relate it to my own life and feelings.

With that knowledge, will I be able to let go of my own bitterness? Who knows...but hearing a complete stranger talk about portions of my own thoughts has certainly given me something to think about. Will I be able to learn what he was teaching me? If I were a betting man, I'd say that the chances are 50-50.

...and lastly, I don't care how big your truck is, dude. Glass-packs are NOT COOL.

Now that my mission statement is done...let me tell you about my night.

"Oh maaaaaannnn...your cab is noisy as hell, why don't you turn up the radio to drown it out. Have you ever heard that song 'Smooth' by Santana? Oh man it's the best song EVER!!! It's got that guy Rob Thomas singing..."
-K.

I haven't learned K's whole story yet, but I know that 1. He is the worst person I have smelled since I was in the Navy. 2. He is habitating the cheapest, crappiest motel in town. (and like all small towns, the crappiest motel always bears the name of the town.) 3. Tonight he may be getting ready for rehab cause instead of reeking like Johnny Walker, he reeked like Aqua Velva and Listerine and wanted to go out and get a "really good steak."

My heart goes out to him, cause unlike other heavy hitting drunks I have driven in the past, he really is quite pleasant. Not to mention a hell of a tipper, if one can get by the fact the he always talks about how much he made last month, which one can if one's financial situation resembles mine.

Why I matter.

Nearly settled in. I still have boxes all over my new apartment, but most of them are empty; I haven't gotten used to my three room palace yet, but I like waking up here; enrolled in school and eagerly awaiting my GI Bill payments;

...and finally, a new job.

I drove Taxi in a smaller community the first time I was in college (1998-2001,) and now that I'm going back (in a differant state) it seemed like a reasonable side occupation. It's easy work, you know? You drive. That's it.

...but that's not the only thing. In a small town like this, the taxi isn't a taxi. It's public transportation. So much in fact, that my paycheck comes from the town's taxes, not a meter.

So what could I have to blog about that could be the least bit interesting? The elderly who's families are far away and are isolated to their worlds of wheelchairs and daytime television? The fellas at the half-way house working at Perkins, but working harder to stay sober? (or how about the guy at the hotel who is getting his last drinking binge out of the way before settling into said half-way house?) The 20 year old psych major who suffers from Cerebral Palsy who has been matched up against an advisary that I cannot begin to comprehend, and has been pulling it off with more class than I can ever hope to achieve. Like Henry Rollins said, "[He's] riding a wave of sheer terror...and getting a tan."

I drive these people around a small town. Not too hard, but I listen to them and try to joke with them...some rides are good, some bad. Just like days.