August 30, 2008 – A Funny Story From Robert Pervantes

            You remember Robert right?  You know, the creepy guy that wants you to drive around the block in circles while he stalks his sister’s boyfriend.   This time was no different but I kept the stalking (as directed by Robert) to a minimum.  Anyways, Robert told me a funny story.

            About a week ago one of our drivers “Nick” picked up Robert and drove him to Starbucks so that Robert could get some coffee.  Robert is disabled, possibly in a number of ways, but most noticeably by the fact that he walks with a crutch.  I’m not exactly sure what ails Robert.  Robert asked Nick if he could go inside and get some coffee.  Nick wasn’t interested and told Robert that he would need to do that himself.  Sure, it would have been a nice gesture to get Robert coffee, but in all fairness, it was a little forward for him to ask directly.  Robert is able to walk, albeit with the aid of a crutch.  Were taxi drivers, not errand runners.

            At any rate about 10 minutes later as Robert is walking out he trips and falls and gets stuck right in the swinging door in front of Starbucks.  Nick just sat there and watched as Robert flailed away like a fish on the beach.  An employee of Starbucks came and helped Robert to his feet and back into the taxi.  I could only imagine the awkwardness on the ride back.

             I had heard nothing about this until Robert brought it up.

            Robert:  I went to the Starbucks the other day and tripped and fell as I was walking out.  The      driver saw the whole thing.  He just sat in his taxi and stared.

            Me: Oh, yeah.

            Robert: Yeah, and then when he dropped me off he told me his name was “Gomez.”  I know Gomez, and that wasn’t Gomez.

            This is actually a game that a number of us drivers play.  Whenever we get a fare that we don’t much care for, we tell our passenger that our name is something else.  This is typically a driver that we really don’t care for.  Me, well, I say my name is “Kirk.”  He’s probably the biggest piece of shit out here, so I try to pass all of the crappy rides on to him.  Kirk’s not as stupid as he looks though.  He’s caught onto this, and now refuses to take personal requests from people he’s not familiar with.

            Gomez, well Gomez actually likes to pick up Robert, although I can’t imagine why… 

March 2, 2008 – Town Drunks

            After a while of working in Cortez you start to notice a pattern.  I have recently noticed one.  Cortez is full of drunks. You know the ones that are out at the bar every day at 5 p.m. and make a total ass of themselves, or start crying telling you some personal detail of their lives, or being to drunk to remember their address, or what they’ve already asked you, or asking the same question over and over, or leaving their beer bottles in the back, or trying to smoke in the car with the windows up, and so on…

The NAVY is the worst!  They smell like B.O, don’t know which Navy base that they are trying to get to, and worst of all is when they try to pick a fight with you.  The sad thing is sometimes you see them doing the same thing every night.

                   They’re not bad people, sometimes they are quite pleasant.  Some are real nice to talk to.  “Smokey” is no exception.  We all love picking up Smokey.  He is one of the best tippers out there.  Not really sure what Smokey’s story is, all I know is that word around town is that he is an excellent golfer.  Smokey usually takes several taxi’s throughout the night, but the optimal time to catch him is on the ride home from the bar.  Smokey is quite the conversationalist but usually easily gets confused and says “I don’t know man” or “I like your style.” Statements like this have become the norm and are expected on a ride home with Smokey.  

                  Sometimes I pick up Smokey from the golf course when he is moderately sober and bring him to the bar or back to house and he will usually give about $4 dollars on a $6 dollar fare.  A pretty average to substantial tip, and on top of that he is a nice guy and we all like to pick him up.  However, if you get him leaving the bar at the end of the night he is more likely to give you a $14 dollar tip on a $6 dollar ride, which is an excellent tip.  Well, tonight I was lucky enough to pick up Smokey and give him a ride home from the bar, and boy he was on a good one.  When we got to his place he gave me $30 dollars for that $6 dollar ride.  Funny thing was that he said “Here’s $50.”  Apparently he was too drunk to count his money and thought he gave me more money than he did.  I was more than happy, I didn’t see any need to correct him and tell him he was $20 short.

            We have a long list of town drunks in Cortez.  Interestingly enough most of them live on Margarita St...