Little Freinds

A mother and her daughter who would have been about seven or eight got in the taxi today at one of our local supermarkets. As it was mid afternoon and after the standard "been busy, and the weather's crap" conversation I said "no school today then" nodding towards the lass in the back who was sat there looking bored and scratching her head.
 "No, she came home with some little friends yesterday," the mother said scratching and shaking her very long head of hair. I didn't know what she meant by this, but she must have noticed my blank baffled expression and so she went on to say "aye it only takes one kid whose parent doesn't treat them and the full class has them" Again I looked at her blankly for a few seconds and then noticed that both mother and daughter were scratching their heads in unison. Then the mite-sized truth dawned on me and the irresistible urge to scratch my own head started to torture me. Being the polite type, I resisted the urge to scrat for the long long two miles till I got them home and out of the taxi. I spent the rest of the afternoon itching my head after that, just like you are trying to stop yourself doing now!

Wet Nightmare

A while back now I got a job not too far away from where I was parked, I didn't recognise the name which come up on my screen but thought nothing of it. The job was to pick-up outside a small supermarket but as soon as I got near I recognised the fare.
 I was out of there like a shot I had picked her up a few weeks previously and she not to put too fine a point on it stank. 
The smell was definitely urine and as she got out I noticed that she had green crystals on her trousers were it had dried out. This led to losing an hour or so to clean the car and so it was a quick u-turn and away, but sure enough as I turned in front of her I could plainly see that she had recently wet herself, it was lucky I remembered her.
Lot’s of people say aren't you frightened of people being sick in the back of the car. I don't work nights so it doesn't affect me but the guys who do tell me that you can tell when people are going to vomit and so stop and get them out. But it’s the young ladies who are desperate for a pee who are the biggest problem apparently they do it on the back seat now and again and you don’t know about it until the next fare gets a cold (or if its recent warm ) wet backside.

Breastschool

I took a lady to the local train station today, she told me she was off to Preston on a university course. 
I asked what she was studying and her reply was “breastfeeding” I was amazed to hear this and thought she was pulling my leg.
 But no she assured me that she was a midwife and that she was on a twelve week course all about breastfeeding. She did assure me that it would be just theory with no practical work involved.

The Burnt Charcoal Suit

One of my lovely passengers, who's a hairdresser was telling me a couple of stories the other day which she assures me are both true. 
The first was told to her by someone who works at the local crematorium. They had a visit from a lady who had recently been widowed and whose late husband's funeral and cremation having taken place only two days previously.” I've come for the suit “she said the staff were mystified by this request and so sat her down and asked what she meant. It turned out that she thought that the customers at the crematorium were undressed prior to being cremated.
 Upon being told that this wasn't so she said “I would have dressed him in one of his old suits if I had known that”.
The second was that a young lady kept coming back to the shop to complain about her perm. It keeps falling out she said, and so the shop redid her hair, this happened three or four times and the shop staff were baffled. On her last visit they sat her down and asked her a few questions about just what she was doing with her hair.
 They found that she actually thought that a perm meant just what it said, and so when she washed her hair she just towelled it and expected it to dry exactly how it was when she left the hairdressers.

Body Bits

It was one of my rare days off today, so as usual it was clean up time with the taxi. Vacuuming the inside I always find the same stuff, hair clips, the odd coin, and lots of glitter from the girl’s makeup.
 But it's the bits of people's bodies left behind that never fail to amaze me, always lots and lots of hair of every colour and not just head hair believe it or not.  Yes the I vacuum up the occasional hair which definitely looks like the pubic variety, how it gets there I just cannot figure.
 Fingernails I can understand there's a heck of a lot of nervous people out there.
 But I never see passengers bite their toenails yet I also find them on the floor.

Meth Lifestyle

I had two meth runs in a row one day recently, for those that don’t know meth is short for methadone which is a liquid heroin substitute doled out by the pharmacist and has to be drank whilst in the chemist’s shop.  This is a daily thing for these people and part of their normal routine, but don't go thinking that it’s all shady young chavs in hoodies, it’s both males and females and with a wide range of ages from twenties up to fifties.   
  Some say that these people have a drug problem but no to a lot of them it isn’t a problem at all.  With most of the long term users it’s simply a way of life and they know nothing else. Think of it this way, what wouldn’t you give to be free of all responsibility and to just treat life as one big game. Usually no fixed address so no bills to pay and no kids to look after, just like most of the users they are brought up by relatives or end up in a care home. Cash isn’t a problem easily earned by small time dealing, supplying other users. 
They tend to give the wrong destination when ordering the cab and it then turns into a run-around and a drop off on a vague street corner after going from one side of town to the other and back. Now sometimes if I stay real quiet with more than one fare in the taxi folk seem to forget I am there and talk about all sorts of strange stuff, today was just one of those occasions. This kind of opened a window onto the wild crazy lifestyles that some of these users take for granted. And it does sometimes seem that they can experience crazier stuff in a week than most of us see in a whole lifetime.  Three people in the taxi and they were all pretty silent until the meth had been taken and then they started to relax and talk between themselves.
One story was the tale of a fellow user who had not been able to go to his brothers’ funeral that week from his prison cell. “Naw the screws wunt let him go cos he’s an high escape risk he got out of the cop van in Lancaster and was on the run for a week, then when they got him he squeezed out of the skylight of the sweatbox (prison van).”  The lass then responded with “they double cuffed me when I went to me nanas, why didn’t they do that and put him on a lead” (a long chain from the cuffs to the prison officers) just then the actual guy they were talking about rang them using a smuggled mobile phone direct from his prison cell. They seemed to treat this as nothing out of the ordinary apparently mobiles are quite easy to get hold of in jail. 
They spent the rest of the cab ride laughing and telling each other stories about how they got caught for dealing and what cars the police were “sneaking around in”.  They didn’t think it fair that the police were now using cars with blacked out windows to watch them from and even using rough old cars to follow them with.  
Wow how some folk live eh!

Chit Chat

You know sometimes it really is a struggle to find something to talk about with the passengers especially ones I have never met before.
A lot of people just don't want to talk and after a while driving a cab you can sense this pretty much straight away and just turn the radio up a bit and get them to where they are going.
But others are more than eager for a chat; some of the old folk we pick up have not spoken to a living soul for days and days on end.
But the thing is that you have to find something safe and neutral to talk about, something in the local news or something we drive past usually starts a good conversation off.
But when nowt is going on it tends to be the fare that starts up on their favourite subject and it goes from there.
But some things can run into problems and are best avoided, take politics for instance we all can get a bit heated on that and so it’s best not to go into it too seriously.
I have lost count of the times when I have had to bite my lip whilst listening to some ould dear complaining about all the foreigners coming over here and nicking our jobs. This in a town which is 99% white and has near full employment.
Still there is always that sure fire safe bet “Football” but problem is I am just not interested in football at all. I usually don't mention this and just let them amaze me with their vast knowledge and skills in management and just hope that they don’t notice my eyes glazing over.
 It’s best not to mention that I don't like football or I get the same open mouthed stupefied expression as if I had just casually mentioned that I knew their mother and wondered if I may be their real father.
The only real safe bet is of course the weather; everyone likes a whinge about it being too hot or too cold.  That is except for the women who I picked up the other day when it just happened to be very misty.  It turns out according to her that the government is causing it and using the mystery mist as a secret weapon to control and spy on us all.
What a load of rubbish eh!
 Everyone knows it’s the aliens that are doing it.      

No Go Area

A while back now I had a job to pick up two people from nearby Ulverston and take them the hundred miles or so to Liverpool airport. When I arrived at the address I opened the boot ready to load the cases only to be told that they had none to load all they had was a plastic Tesco carrier bag.
Now to me a couple with no luggage going to the airport seems more than a bit strange.
So I asked them to pay up front and then enquired about the lack of luggage. Well the guy said we don't really want to go to the airport, we just said that for convenience but it’s not far from there though. 
He paid me no problem and told me he would direct me once we got off the motorway and into Liverpool. They were a bit of an odd couple with him being older and from this area she being a true scouse who swore every other word. I listened to them argue all the way down the motorway about nowt in particular and just as they were about to drive me mad at last we turned off the motorway. The guy started to give me directions which seemed to take us in circles several times this caused more arguments between them and it was decided that the lady( and I use the term loosely) would direct me the rest of the way. We drove into Edge Hill and then into what looked like a giant demolition site. Row upon row of terraced houses all boarded up with corrugated iron sheets, no sign of life not even passing or parked cars.
 I began to get a bit nervous and asked are you sure it’s round here, yes she replied “just a bit further. So keeping one eye on the road and the other on the passengers I drove slowly on. Ten minutes later she shouted “stop stop” and even before we had fully stopped she jumped out and ran swearing and shouting towards the only house in all the dereliction that had doors and windows. The guy handed me a ten pound note as he got out and said “thanks mate that’s for you none of the local taxis will come down here” I guess that explains the airport story they gave.

Furry Fright

I didn't take a lot of notice when the lady got into the back of the taxi and asked to go into town. On the way she asked me to pull up outside a post office and wait whilst she did an errand. 
 After about five minutes or so I was just sat there bored and daydreaming, when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spotted something small and furry making its way quickly from in between the seats straight towards me. 
I was out of the taxi quicker than a Danish cartoonist leaving a mosque. 
I thought that maybe a rat or squirrel must have gotten in somehow.  After a minute or two of taking deep breaths I still wasn't prepared to get back in the cab to fight the furry intruder and was stood peering anxiously through the windows trying to spot it again. 
Just at that moment the lady walked out of the post office and up to the car and seeing my shocked expression guessed exactly what had happened.
Sorry she said “I should have told you I had my miniature Yorkshire terrier in my pocket and thought it would be ok to leave her in the car”.

Spellbound

Driving the taxi through Dalton with a lady passenger on board the other day, when she spotted a lone magpie.
 She saluted smartly and said aloud "good morning mister magpie how's your wife".
I looked at her with an open mouth so she gave me the explanation, that it was it was an old superstition more prevalent in the rural areas. Any more I asked? She told me a couple I already knew but another couple of fresh ones she gave me were never move on a Friday and never trust a man with squeaky shoes, that means he owes money.
Later that very day I had picked up a couple and the guy was getting dropped of before the lady. He was about to get out of the taxi when he was dragged back inside by the lady who got quite upset telling me that I mustn't drop him off when parked on the bridge. 
"Part on a bridge and you may never meet again" was the superstition  that had her under it's spell. 

Black Gold

I noticed today that a coal truck had lost part of its load on Greengate St here in Barrow in Furness. 
Not that many years ago people would have appeared seemingly from nowhere with buckets and carried it off for use in the garden.
 But no not nowadays it was just left to be crushed under the wheels of passing traffic.  I sometimes wonder just how many people would actually know how to light a coal fire in this age of push button central heating.

Pre-booked cab

Some people will always book their taxi well in advance and will ask for a taxi at 9am or 10.30pm or five to eleven etc etc but there's always one that has to be a bit eccentric I suppose..

I didn't think anything of it at first until I noticed on the PDA screen (image to the left) that the job was pre-booked for 9.02pm and even so I thought that the customer had rang it asking for it in 20 mins and the telephonist at our end had booked it in as 20 minutes from the current time for example but curiosity got the better of me and so I questioned the young man and asked "What time did you book your cab for" expecting him to say 9pm. He actually said 2 minutes past nine and went on to explain that he was meeting a girl in the pub and had told her that if she wasn't there by 9pm that he would be going without her and he had rang the taxi at 8pm ish anticipating that she wasn't going to turn up and allowed 2 minutes at 9pm and then got in the taxi and went on his way.