Thursday, May 21, 2015

When I Owned a Taxi

I owned a taxi for five years. It was a great job until immigrants ruined it by working 12 hours a day, living six to an apartment (better than a cardboard box in their home countries), stinking up their cabs, harassing the women (I got stories!), and not understanding anything but rudimentary English. And making about $15,000 a year.

Don't foreigners get laid in their home countries? Or are they just perverts? One Russian got caught using a mirror to look up woman's dresses. WTF? That's eight-year-old hijinks. Some African got arrested and fired for deciding to not let a woman out of his cab. Why he did that no one knows.

When I first started I had a older driver (started in the '50s) tell me that when he started he thought, "Where had this job been?" He drove 11 months and then took a month off, put his wife in the sidecar of his motorcycle, and then both toured the country for a month.

Those days are gone.

I wouldn't use a taxi today. In fact, I don't. Almost all the good drivers have been run off. I'll never go back.

It used to be a middle-class job, one that paid $50,000 a year. Not anymore.

Yup, immigrants are a plus to this country, especially when you're putting your life in your hands dealing with them.

4 comments:

Shaun F said...

I was in Quebec in March, taking taxis to a course. Most drivers that work in Quebec are French Canadians, or Christian Lebanese as there was a huge influx in that area of our country. Rosaries hanging from the rear view windows. A few of the guys had driven taxi for 30 years + and still remembered what the area was like back in the 80s and some claimed they could still work reasonable hours (meaning not 12 hour shifts). The taxis all had non-smoking signs, but when I asked in French if I could smoke they'd point at the sign then say "No problem." I like being able to smoke when taking a taxi. It figures I have to travel about 5000 miles to do it.

Robert What? said...

My uncle, now gone, owned a cab in NYC back in the days when (a) cabs were driven by English-speaking American men, (b) drivers took pride in their knowledge of the City and the condition of their cab, (b) a middle class person could afford to buy his own NYC cab, and (d) you could live a middle class life driving a cab. He was right out of Central Casting.

Anonymous said...

Hillary Clinton is chomping at the bit to throw the gates even wider open.

Robert What? said...

I wonder if Ted Kennedy could come back today, would he pleased or horrified at the disaster he set in motion?