Oh, Mr. Cab Driver..

 With this cold weather I have gotten a little too comfortable hailing a cab, and I have met a wide variety of crazy cab drivers too. Lets see..

There was the cab driver who yelled at me for the ENTIRE ride because I mentioned I would have to pay with my credit card. First, I get in his cab and when I tell him my address he says "I didn't want to go south!". Then, he SCREAMED at me that I was selfish, inconsiderate, and rude for not having cash. You would have thought that I was a little child being yelled at by her father. He was cursing and I was annoyed. Here I am, a paying customer, and I am getting yelled at by someone I have hired to take me from point A to point B. This would never happen in any other business situation. I would never yell at a client like this (I would get fired). I begin talking back to him, but realize he was in control of the situation. I would either have to get out of the cab on the middle of Lake Shore Drive or listen to him yell.

Then, there is the cab driver who was very, very religious. He was preaching his views to me as he dropped me off at a bar. Telling me God doesn’t exist in Wrigleyville and I need to make sure I get up for church tomorrow morning because I needed to ask for forgiveness. Then he told me about his seven children, all named after people in the Bible. Good Lord.

I have only had one woman cab driver, and I am pretty sure she stole the cab from her ex-boyfriend. She wasn't very sly, she was on her cell phone telling people she "took his car" and she was going to "make the money back she wasted on him". Next phone call I was pretty sure she was prostituting herself for later that night.

I also have had a handful of noisy drivers. Awkward conversation at its finest, let me tell you... You’re in this little vehicle, and some strange man is striking up a conversation with you about something you absolutely have no interest in. or even worse, he’s hitting on you. Sometimes they start asking me how much I pay for my apartment and what I do for a living. Things I don’t want to talk about with them, so sometimes I make up really interesting stories to make the time go quicker and more fun.

Two summers ago we were leaving Wrigley one night and got in a cab. It was Steph, Steph, Michelle and I. I will never forget this driver, he was rocking out to awful 80’s pop, so loud you couldn’t think straight, sucking on a lollypop. We asked him repeatedly to turn it down, and he wouldn’t. He loved life and was very entertaining. He took us totally out of the way and we ended up having to pay double. That’s the worse part about cab drivers, if you don’t act like you know where you’re going, they totally take you the wrong way and charge you more. If you call them out on it they get even more rude and uptight. Point of the story, there is always an adventure with cab drivers! : )