Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2014 by yellowandblackmail

I don’t know about the bar culture in YOUR town, but in Madison it’s thriving.  Most of the important things in this down are done at bars.  Most of the shows, most of the dates, most pre- and post-sporting meetups, birthday gatherings, etc.  It’s like our collective identity’s home is “the bar”.  Just ask someone who doesn’t drink (if you can find one) and lives in Madison and they’ll tell you that they are forced to keep frequenting the bars in order to maintain any contact with their friends and family.

There are two or three days per year in Madison where the bars are allowed to not close. Continue reading →

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I don’t like to focus on negativity.

Posted on December 22, 2013 by yellowandblackmail

I’ve been avoiding posting because most of what’s going on is negative.  Winter is “officially” here, but it’s been shitting up the streets for several weeks.  Here’s a picture of me from about 2 weeks ago, starting my shift during a snowstorm.  I’m about to start the last day of my work week, I know it’s going to be shit on the road, so this is my pep-talk selfie.

I am clearly enjoying myself.

I am clearly enjoying myself.

This was before we had an ice storm, so the roads weren’t COMPLETE garbage, but they were pretty bad.  On this night I had picked up a man from a disabled Audi. Continue reading →

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Flagging, in two parts

Posted on September 30, 2013 by yellowandblackmail

“Flagging” in our company is a term for pedestrians on the street waving their arms around frantically in the hopes that a cab will stop for them.  Often our drivers will say something like “I picked up a flag,” and if you’re a passenger in the cab when they say this to the dispatcher on the radio, you might be put off by the objectification of the phrase.  Don’t worry, it’s just to save airtime, which is a precious commodity during the bar rush.  It doesn’t reflect your worth to us, I swear.

If we seem distant in the cab when you get in and you hear us calling you a “flag” to the dispatcher, it’s because there’s a giant chasm of difference between our mood and yours.  You’re in partytime mode, we’re in “omg we need to get all these people home quick before they start driving themselves and putting us all in danger” mode. Continue reading →

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Pussy Control

Posted on September 16, 2013 by yellowandblackmail

So this weekend was pretty busy.  The college kids are back in town and there’s a large convention happening for Epic Systems so the town is flooded.  There was a college football away game (which the UW lost due to a terrible ref…  no really!), and it rained at bar time Saturday night, which compounds things for us.

One beautiful highlight was when I picked up 4 self-proclaimed “young retirees” Continue reading →

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Lost and found

Posted on August 12, 2013 by yellowandblackmail

I always pre-trip my cab.  That means I look everywhere and clean it out, check tire pressure, check the body of the cab for damage I don’t want to be blamed for, and sometimes vacuum it before each shift, not each trip…  cabbie lingo is sometimes counter-intuitive.  At the end of my shift I always check the interior for trash, lot items, and money.  The tire pressure and vacuuming are usually only things I do before my shift.

Sometimes what I find is empty plastic cups of melted ice water left over from the night before (people leave bars a lot with a to-go water when they’re feeling REALLY wasted).  Sometimes it’s paper plates from the late-night pizza by-the-slice shop.  Sometimes it’s money!  Yay money!  Most of the time it’s nothing special, though.  I take pictures. Continue reading →

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