I got to yell at a cabbie yesterday.
To some, this may not sound like a big deal, it could even be a turn off. But if you work in the service industry in downtown Pittsburgh, you may completely understand the thrill of being able to bitch out one of these feisty sons of bitches with little to no repercussion.
After work, fate had me in at my favorite Starbucks location on 6th and Penn in the heart of the Downtown Cultural District. I ran into a number of my favorite people: Micha from Verve Wellness and Richard Danielpour among them (yes I'm totally name dropping). After a bit, I decided to head home via cab. I stopped off at my old stomping grounds of Renaissance Pittsburgh Downtown on 6th and Ft Duquesne to see if my old coworkers could help a girl out with at least a cab company phone number or giving me a taxi they had at the stand.
If you don't know about Pittsburgh drivers, here's a tip: if you're not going to the airport, they're not interested in taking you somewhere. You really have to fight, argue and verbally berate one of them to convince them to take you from Downtown to the North Side, especially in Bucco's traffic.
My friend, Mike, took the liberty of calling a cab just as one showed up at the stand. The bellstaff at Renaissance gave it to me but when I went to open the car door, it was locked. The driver rolled down the rear window and called over his shoulder, "Where you headed ma'am?"
"Over to the North Side."
He shook his bald head vigorously and said, "Nope. No way!"
I took great offense to this and started screaming on the sidewalk in front of Giovanni's Pizza, "What the hell do you mean, 'No.'? I'm willing to pay you and tip you to take me over to Monterey Street and you're telling me no? What's wrong with you?" etc etc etc. I think I made up some words as I went.
Meanwhile, 6th Street traffic totally had my back. As this asshole was trying to pull away, no one would let him out. I secretly laughed at his misfortune on the inside as he turned over his shoulder at me again and said, "Whatever lady, get in the cab."
He called me "Lady."
The trip from Downtown to my house on Monterey Street was fairly uneventful. Yellow Cab called him when we got to the 7th Street Bridge and asked him to go pick up a fare at Renaissance. He replied, "I think I just picked her up." Get fucked buddy, he was a lot nicer to me after that.
I had him let me off on the corner of Monterey and Jacksonia and he was most displeased with me when I offered my debit card instead of cash but ate his words when I tipped him well.
The moral of this story: Be nice to people even when they piss you off. You never know who's dealing with a family member dying of cancer, a job loss or a fight with a significant other. You may be the person who can brighten their day or you could be the person to make it worse. You also don't know if that miserable person is a philanthropist in need and just appreciates your time and help.
Which is why I thanked him profusely even though he was a giant dickhead.
I tried to get a cab from downtown to Altar Bar on New Year's eve. After wondering around for about 10 minutes I finally was able to flag one down. You would have thought I asked him to drive to Japan. Needless to say he got the fare and that was all. I don't tip assholes. Oh, and later I walked back into town to get the T.
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