A couple of weeks ago I had a mild incident.  I picked up a couple people from a charity event at a public garden and took them to a fancy downtown hotel.  I couldn’t place if they were friends or cousins, but they certainly didn’t act like a couple.  One woman, one man, maybe mid-forties.  When the man got in he immediately demanded that I give him some of my dinner, which was on a paper plate on the front seat.

My dinner was a nice slice of freshly smoked chicken and several hand cut and fried potatoes.  It was DELICIOUS.

“No,” I said, a little taken aback by his demand.  He had literally said, “Oh, I’ll have some!”
“Well, where’d you get it?!”
“A friend’s anniversary party.  They had a cook-out.”
“Oh!  Well take us there!”
“No, you aren’t invited.  It is a private party at someone’s HOUSE.”
“Well, I asked NICELY!”
“No, you demanded.  How about you give me one of those nice mugs you have?”  I point to a souvenir mug he got into the car with, it looked like it came from the gift shop from the gardens.
“I’ll give you this mug if you show me your jugs!  HAH!”

This is when the lady in the car piped up and told him to settle down and behave.  She had been looking uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed up until this point.  It didn’t detour him.  He kept yapping the whole ride, mentioning my jugs a couple more times, demanding my phone number, demanding to know where I hung out on my days off, and finally we ended the ride with him telling me that “women with tattoos are just attention whores.”  I was wearing a long sleeved, baggy shirt but he had caught a glimpse of a tattoo on my wrist.

He handed me a corporate card to charge the $13 fare and demanded a receipt.  “Oh, you’re expensing this?”  Obviously.  He said I could put $3 on for a tip.  “Oh, thanks.”
“What?  That’s a good tip.”
“Not for the grief you’ve given me this whole ride.  No, I will not give you my dinner.  No, I will not take you to my friend’s house.  No, I will not show you my JUGS.  No, I will not give you my phone number or tell you where I hang out.  And FUCK YOU for the tattoo comment.  Get the fuck out of my cab.”

He called and complained that I had been rude to him and his friend the next day.  What a pair on this guy.  Luckily, I work in a company where most of our employees have been drivers before and understand how shitty people are when intoxicated.  We also listen to both sides of situations before passing judgement.  I got to tell my side of the story before someone decided whether or not to punish me.

Several times this past month I’ve had a group of people where someone from the back tells the man sitting in the front seat to either turn my FM radio up or change the station, like I’m not even in the car.  A few other times I’ll have a closed bag of chips and the drunk man in the front seat will grab at it to try and munch on my snack.

Weird how never have these instances involved women except as embarrassed bystanders.