I love madison soooo much. It’s almost too much. I had this… ride… friday night that I want to share! yay sharing!

Pick up: Kollege Klub
When I go to pick up “Brian: party of 2” at the KK someone was standing in the middle of the street in front of the bar, preventing me from pulling out of traffic. He didn’t acknowledge me as his cab driver (most people raise their hand or make eye contact at least), but he came over and tried to get in when I stopped myself from running him over. I confirm he’s Brian (I would have preferred to tell him “no I’m not taking you” just because of his bad taxi etiquette), and as he’s getting in I let him know it’s not appropriate to stand in the middle of the street to stop a cab. This sets off a tirade of “fucks” and “fucking” and other various “fuck” words interspersed with what I believe to be his opinion that Madison sucks and everyone in it, too.

I figure he’ll run out of steam soon, but he went on for several miles.
“Those fucks on state street should be fucking grateful for my fucking money that they fucking RELY on…”
“Are you talking about me?”
“No, nonono…”
and later:
“Fucking shitheads trying to pick fucking fights with me all fucking night, FUCK! Madison fucking SUCKS!”
(This is where I get fed up, it’s been about 3 miles)
“Well, maybe people were picking fights with you because every other word out of your mouth is ‘fuck’.”

This doesn’t go over well. We get into an argument, and as most arguments go with drunk people, I don’t get space between his “fuck”s for my points so I raise my voice more and more. I say things like “Most of the people on state street on Friday nights are from out of town,” which he somehow takes as me calling HIM an asshole (because he’s been calling people downtown assholes for 3 miles). This is a cool leap of logic for a drunk guy. I also say “I LIKE MADISON!” Really loudly after several “MADISON SUCKS!” comments, which infuriated him.

We go two more miles or maybe a little more and I’m actively defending Madison because I love it so much.  Honestly, it feels REALLY good to yell back at this asshole for something I love. I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere, though, because it’s impossible to argue with drunk people. He thought differently, though, because he had to have the Last Word. This is the TOTALLY AWESOME part, get ready!

“Well then why don’t you just let us out here!” These two boys are going to a hotel on the west side, they’re from out of town, we’re 5 miles from their hotel, and we’re in the middle of a residential area without any businesses in sight (or within 2 miles).

“OKAY!” I say. I feel totally awesome right now. The two show about 2 seconds of disbelief, but then decide to make a stand and get out, their pride won’t let them back down. HAH!

“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?!” I think for a second, and decide to give my name. Obviously he’ll be calling to complain, but I don’t really care.

I get called several bad names as I pull away. Normally people promise a calmer ride if they can stay in, or offer a bigger tip, or just plain beg once I threaten to boot them out, but not this ride.  It was beautiful poetry that Brian was the one to demand exit in the middle of nowhere when I had gotten fed up.

They called the office and told the phone answerer that I just couldn’t DO that! I couldn’t LEAVE them in the middle of nowhere and they should be sent another cab!  After speaking with me quickly on my cell phone while these guys were on hold to get the scoop, the phone answerer told them they couldn’t be abusive to our drivers and wouldn’t be sending another taxi, but we would be willing to give them the phone number of a competitor. The phone answerer tells me later that this is the point where the man calls him a “Fucking Faggot” and he gets to hang up on them. We both kinda had a chuckle about it because this particular phone answerer is indeed gay, but if you’re going to be rude you don’t get a ride.

Throughout the rest of the night I’m in high spirits because I left total douchebags in a bad position. I wish I could have left them in the middle of the desert without water, but I’ll take what I can get. They call the office several times to harass people and I get several messages on my computer to write up this incident.  Apparently these two are planning to call the city and complain. I figure I’m covered since they’re the ones who asked to be let out of the cab in the first place. If their argument is that I was rude or abusive to THEM… well I think the taxi commissioner would believe they saw Unicorns before he’d believe that.  My goal as a cab driver is not to pick fights, I’m a cab driver to make money. duh.

Not to mention I’m in very good standing. Somehow the only people who want to complain about me want to go straight to the City Council to do it, but that hasn’t affected me at all since one of them was literally crazy (the ride was to the mental institute), and the others were so VERY drunk when their incidents happened.