Taxicab driving careers: pitfalls and Stevie Nicks

Back around 1998, she decided to pursue a career in the lucrative world of taxicab driving. This is all well and good, except when you're a scrawny 18-year-old and you work the city graveyard shift. Needless to say, at times she felt she should be on that taxicab confessional TV show.

There were the drunk people going home who fell asleep in the back, the crazy people going who-knows-where, the addicts who would try to shoot up in the back if she wasn't paying attention, the prostitute and her 7-year-old daughter who got dropped off at the motel with the heart-shaped jacuzzis, the nice older lady going late-night grocery shopping who always told her the job was too dangerous for her, and of course Charley, the old guy who told stories about snorting cocaine with Stevie Nicks. No one really believed him, but they were damn entertaining stories.

Being newly involved in the taxicab field, she did not have a license to drive a taxi. So she drove only the livery jobs, where a person was picked up from a specific location after having called the taxi company for a ride. She aspired to one day be as successful as the rest of the taxicab force, who all hung out in their cars in a dark corner next to the train station, drinking, and snorting mass quantities of unknown substances, in between pickups. These were obviously the real career-hounds.

On a side note, about 8 years later, a friend of hers had the unfortunate experience of being driven into a tree by one of these taxicab professionals. She felt for her friend, but was not the least bit surprised this had happened.

Now you may be wondering how a little twig like her managed to stay out of trouble. There were two main weapons she had in her arsenal. First, of course the taxicab company had installed safety measures in the car. She was in constant contact with the company dispatcher. There was also a system in which, with the flick of a switch, a special light would turn on on the roof of the car. This would alert any passing police officers that trouble was brewing inside the car.

Second, and most importantly, was her self-made preventative system. She liked to call it the play-dumb game. Imagine you get into a cab, in the middle of the night, and notice a pretty, young girl is driving. Maybe this distracts you for a moment, and you feel the urge to start up conversation and see where it leads. She asks you where you're going, and you reply, "64 Market Street." You then open your mouth to ask her some dumb question about whether or not she's too young to be doing such a dangerous job, but before you get a word out, she replies, "Market Street, huh? So...am I taking a left or a right from here?" You then spend the rest of the trip giving her directions to the place you'd like to be dropped off at. Unbelievable, you say to yourself. A taxicab driver that doesn't know how to get anywhere. You shake your head as you hand her the fare and tell her to keep the friggin' change. The End.

This method worked for her for quite a while, although she was always a bit on edge about it all.

One day she picked up the prostitute, this time without her 7-year-old daughter. Instead she was with a man, and they began arguing the moment they got in the taxi. Apparently, the young daughter had walked in on her mother and a client on the last job, and, as I can only imagine, became permanently scarred. The man, obviously in the dual husband/pimp role, seemed convinced it was the woman's own fault. As you can imagine, the issue was never resolved between them, and they got out of the taxi near the sign for heart-shaped jacuzzis, still arguing loudly.

Soon after that, she became disillusioned with the entire field. She also realized that she was really only averaging about $10/hour, when all was said and done. She gave her resignation, and began dreaming up new career paths.