Itsy Bitsy

I don't mind spiders at all, they just don't bother me, but going by the reactions I have had in the back of the cab lately, they sure do bother some people. Apparently, I have had a spider as a non-paying passenger for the last week or so. I've never seen it but going by the screams and quick exits that some fares make it must be a scary one. Every time someone mentions it I check the car out and despite searching high and low all I have found are a few silky threads. They tell me it's small and red and very quick, it must be to survive my weekly assault with the hoover. But one thing its good for is keeping kids quiet in the back after the first scream most get to the furthest corner and just watch in silent horror. Think I might get some more and keep them in a matchbox just to threaten the kids with.

Oh, the photo is one the daughter nearly scared to death by screaming when she found it innocently sharing the bath.

Sign of The Times

I picked lots of noisy kids up this week, it's the week before the schools go back and so it's the last minute rush for school uniforms. One woman was totally oblivious to her three unruly brats in the back, she just seemed to go into a trance looking at her phone as her kids fought screamed, and then rolled both back windows down and started to throw things out including the taxi firms business cards. Still, she just stared at the darn phone deaf and blind to the chaos in the rear. That was when I braked and pulled over and without saying a word got out rolled up the back windows and placed my new sign that I bought a while back from Lancaster Castle, onto the dash, then I just looked at them for a minute without saying a word. They looked at me and then at the sign and that was it not a peep out of them for the rest of the journey. Funny thing was the mother never said a word, but she gave me a good tip with the fare.

Muck Magnet

As I pulled up outside an address to pick up a fare today I noticed a big black dirty oil patch outside and so I parked just past it to save my fare walking through it and messing the car up. The fare turns out to be a harassed mum and her three young kids, the two older boys got in the car and told me that they were going to a party meanwhile the girl of about two ran around and danced in excitement outside. Then, of course, the muck magnet which is built into every kid kicks in and she goes head over heels into the oil, she is covered from head to toe and all over her party clothes. And so the harassed mum finds a clean bit, picks her up and takes her in to wash and change.
Ten minutes later she runs out dancing and giggling and whilst harassed mum is locking her door she tumbles straight into the oil patch again if it wasn’t for the little girls tears and cries of” mum, mum” I would have laughed. Harassed mum decided enough was enough and just wiped her down and said she’d have to go as she was.
I guess that she never did a good job of the clean up judging by the perfect black child’s footprint on the less than perfect butt of my next lady passengers white jeans, I almost felt guilty but it was the last job and so I went home laughing.

Testing Time

I went out on a job to a country lane near the small town of Dalton-in-Furness when I got there it was a driving school car which had broken down miles from anywhere. The two passengers wanted to go to the Driving Test Centre and they explained that one was a driving test examiner and the other was actually taking his test when they had broken down. Well this was a first for me but I guess it does happen now and then, funny thing was that I felt a bit nervous with a driving examiner in the back of the cab and found myself driving as if I was on some sort of test myself. When we got back to the test centre the driving school instructor, who owned the car was waiting outside and you should have seen his face when his pupil and the examiner got out of the cab, he must have been thinking that his car had been wrecked. I ended up driving the instructor and the pupil home after that and the instructor was telling me that it was going to work out rather expensive for him as they are self-employed like us and like us no car no work, which means no income.

Judderbutts

I picked up an old German lady today and a good old stick she is too we were cracking away as we drove along. I was about to turn off down a street when she said “no de judderbutts” this had me baffled for a minute or two and then I remembered that this street had lots of large speed humps on it. I laughed when I realised that this is what she meant. Judderbutts what a great word it describes speed bumps perfectly, go on just say it a few times, isn’t it a great word. Watch out for those judderbutts!

On The Meter

A 15-minute drama, written by Nicholas Hargreaves and Tabitha Konstantine. - We follow the journey of a black cab and it's driver, through three different jobs which are all inspired by true events. Everything that happens, all happens inside of the four doors of the taxi.

https://soundcloud.com/nick-nock-hargreaves/on-the-meter-radio-drama

Dud

A customer I picked up today never ever tips, so I was very surprised when the fare was £3.40p and he said here's £4.00 keep the change.  But when I looked at the four "pound coins" I was not shocked to find that one of them was a worthless lead forgery,  Ah well nothing changes eh!

Road Kill

I took a fare out to the village of Baycliff today and on the way out down the coast road, we came across a beat up looking car parked haphazardly on the road with the hazard warning lights on.   As we got closer and slowed to go around it the driver got out and went to the rear of his car and stood looking down at a dead seagull on the roadside. So after that, the fare and I laughed and tried to figure out what on earth he was doing. "Giving it the last rites, " said the fare “no he wants to make quills with its feathers "I replied" or an Indian headdress" he answered.  Or maybe he's one of these guys that likes to eat road kill I said "not much of a meal there" he said, " unless he puts it in a stew."  On the way back into town I checked, and sure enough, the seagull had gone.

Time Out

A lady who I pick up now and again asked me what the time was, I told her the correct time and she went to adjust her watch. I noticed that she set it five minutes fast. Why do that I asked "so I know the time" she said, this had me puzzled and so I asked a few more lady fares and they all seemed to think it normal quite a few said that they had different clocks and watches set either fast or slow” so they know the right time". This must be a female thing because it baffles us guys I can't figure the logic in this even the wife thinks it's perfectly normal. I wonder how many guys check the time at home and assume that the clock is set right.

Glitter

Picked up three passengers early this morning and they all had garish eye makeup on and lots and lots of glitter and blusher.  The only problem was that only one of them was female. The tale they gave me was that they had fallen asleep at a party and someone had given them a makeover, but the guys one of whom carried a bunch of carnations made no attempt to wipe it off and promptly fell asleep on the drive to the nearby town of Ulverston. I had a bit of a struggle to wake them to find the address they wanted and they kept muttering and falling asleep again. We had driven well past it so I let them out and they set off walking through the busy streets, getting lots of amused looks from passers-by.

Chav Sense

I had a local chav couple in the back of the cab today and I couldn't help but overhear the bizarre conversation that they were having. Girl chav" why didn't you eat the dinner I made you?" Guy chav "cos it was crap luv" Girl chav "but starving people like what you see on the telly would be glad of grub like that” Guy chav" I’ve got no sympathy with any of em why don't they just move like, get a bus or somethin an go somewhere a bit more lush" Girl chav "oh yeah" and she sighs and looks at him all admiringly and is gob smacked at him for solving the world's food crisis.

Lacquer

My passenger was a young lass of about eighteen years of age and she looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Where do you want to go I asked?  "Dalton” she replied and so off we went to the next town along which is about six miles away, as we got closer to Dalton I asked her whereabouts she would like to be dropped off at. “The lacquer knacker” she replied brightly, I looked at her blankly and said I have never even heard of that, it’s a pub she said looking at me as if I were daft, I still never had a clue and so she said “The golden ball” and then the penny dropped. That was the first time I have ever heard it called that,it must be a local Dalton thing.

Jitters

In stark contrast, to yesterday's run of funeral jobs I had a few wedding runs today. One was with the bride, chief bridesmaid and the bridesmaids brother going to the bride’s mothers to get themselves ready for the big ceremony. They were going a nearby village which is a six-mile ride away.
The two girls seemed to get more and more stressed for every yard that we drove along, they were on the phone making last minute arrangements and asking each other if they had forgotten anything all in all in a total flap. On the way, we stopped off at the posh hotel where the reception was to be held and when the bride and bridesmaid got out of the taxi to drop something off there was silence for a minute or two then the brother and I looked at each other and just burst out laughing. Talk about stress give me a good funeral do anytime.

The Coin Juggler

I had what I always refer to as a coin juggler in the back of the cab today. I pick this particular type of folk up maybe once or twice a week, and they can be of either sex and old or young, rich or poor but they always sit in the back and try to be discrete. What they do is they watch the taxi meter obsessively and every time it clicks over they move the coins from one hand to the other so that they have the exact fare ready in small change, minus the tip of course! You don’t get very much conversation out of a coin juggler just the soft obsessive clinking of coins, but still they always amuse me no end. What does catch the juggler out now and again is when the meter adds the waiting time on when we stop at lights or in heavy traffic and the meter goes up a few bob, that’s when they tend to juggle faster and then panic and drop all their precious coins on the cab floor.

Pardon

Today was one of the very few occasions when I found myself lost for words, I usually have no problems understanding just about any nationality, but today the two lasses who got into the back of the cab might as well have been speaking broad Martian. In the end, they had to point to where they wanted to go. They started to talk to each other and it dawned on me that they were actually Irish, I’m usually Ok with the Irish brogue but this dialect was one I had never heard before. Still we had a laugh and got there in the end, but this reminds me of the drunken lady I picked up a while back one rainy day.

She was so drunk that she could not speak at all and she just waved her hands in the direction that she wanted to go. When we eventually got to her house she wasn’t capable of counting the fare so she just threw her bag at me to get the cash out for myself. Next comes the bit I was worried about, there was no way she could walk and I didn’t fancy carrying her rather large bulk into her house, you never know what you may be accused of later. After banging on a few neighbours doors, I managed to get some folk who knew her and her drunken habits to help her in. If this is the state she gets in the middle of the afternoon I wouldn’t like to see her after a heavy night out!

Voices

I was talking to another driver one day this week, he works for one of the last firms in town which still uses the old voice over the radio airwaves system to dispatch work. After about five minutes sat in his car listening to the squeaking of the high pitched voice on the radio my head was hurting and it made me really glad that the firm I work with now uses computer dispatch.

 Some drivers say they miss the banter on the radio, but that’s a small price to pay for a whole lot less stress. Back when we used radio we had some operators whose voices tended to really grate on your nerves especially after four or five long hours you felt like you had to get out the cab and bang your head on the pavement to stop the torture. You know the type of voice I mean the one that you just wouldn’t want them shouting you up for breakfast in the morning after a boozy night on the town.

 We can still talk to the office by radio if necessary to make bookings etc, but some days I can work all day and not know who the dispatch operator is. This works the other way as well some of the operators tell me that drivers come into the office and they haven’t got a clue which driver they are talking to.

Binned

Another busy Sunday and the morning started off with lots of leftovers from the Saturday night. One of the first was from a house in the next town five miles up the road, but the fare had still not appeared after ten minutes of me waiting patiently. It was 8: am and so there was no way I was going to blow the horn and rudely wake the poor local folk up. I was pressing ring back which calls the customers phone every few minutes and after a while I faintly heard a phone ring, it was coming from the backyard of the house where I was supposed to pick up from. I got out and opened the door and there was my disheveled drunken lady fare sitting on a dustbin, she must have expected me to drive into the back yard to collect her. 
She was only going up the road a half mile or so to a local hotel, as we got nearer alarm bells started in my head when she slurred that she was going to collect her car. But as we pulled into the hotel car park she swore when she saw that her car was blocked in by four or five others. I let out a sigh of relief because I knew that the hotel staff wouldn't even consider waking up the paying guests to move the cars for some drunken lady. I was proved right and returned her back to her dustbin within a few minutes.

Black Eye Friday

Way up here in this part of the North of England, we tend to call the last Friday before Christmas “Black Eye Friday.”
 It's the day most people finish work for the Christmas holidays and they tend to finish work early about lunch time and they then head straight down to the pub for a long boozy session.
 I find it amusing when it gets to about four o'clock in the afternoon I then start to pick up some of the less hardened boozers when they have had enough and want to go home.  Lots of them are then telling me what a good night they have had; they are convinced that because it's dark that it must be very very late at night. I never tell them any different and just drive them home.
 Once a year drunks I call them the very worst kind of drinker because they just aren't used to it, give me a seasoned drinker anytime.  They take ages to come out of the pub shaking hands, hugging everyone in sight, and then going back into the pub several times for yet more long emotional farewells. Then once you get them into the taxi, the struggle is then to get them out of the taxi at the other end, because you are, their new very best friend in the whole wide world and they want to tell you their life story many times very very slowly and emotionally. Then its handshakes and if I’m very unlucky big bear hugs, but of, course none of my new found best friends ever recognise me ever again.
Still it's all good sport, Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Prison Review

I always like to listen to people's regional accents and then try to guess exactly whereabouts they are from. Today I guessed correctly that my fare was from the Salford area straight after him saying where he was going to. He was that much impressed that I had said Salford and not the rival nearby Manchester that he strangely decided to give me the full low down on all the many prisons he had been in up and down the country.

 It was like an insider's guide with all the good and bad points of Her Majesty’s accommodation from all over the country. Apparently Armley jail in Leeds is best avoided" the screws don’t like you if you aren’t a tyke". But our local jail Haverigg "is just a holiday camp" compared to most. I just wish I had could have written it all down now, you never know when it may have come in useful eh!

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!