K8 the GR8

I drove into work yesterday empowered by The Prodigy, old skool style.  It took my brain to another dimension… pay close attention. 

I’m empowered.  I rule the bus lanes of Dublin City.  I read strange books and lurk in taxi-ranks and I am at your service.  I am not a sour taxi-driver, I’m quiet.  If you talk to me, I’ll talk back and agree with you, sympathise with you and be interested in what you have to say, as long as you keep popping those coins in the meter. 

I picked up a carpet-layer from Bargaintown yesterday, and forgot to turn on the meter until we were halfway there.  His tip made up for it because he was refreshed.  I let an old guy off two euros… he had the notes but I took his spare change instead even though it fell short.  He smiled and said it would come back around, and it did. 

—–

To all taxi drivers out there who might chance upon this post-

Be nice.  Provide a service that people want and the rewards will return.  Fuck the belligerence.  Write it down instead.  Blog, don’t bitch.

Read all those newspaper articles, listen to Joe Duffy or read countless blogs and you’ll know that we taxi-drivers are a hated breed.  They think we all guard our meters like we’re heroin-addicts and use every available opportunity to stiff the poor unsuspecting public.  They think we all talk too much about our miserable lives and darken their souls with our sordid opinions, but we don’t.  Not all of us.

So you’ve been burnt before eh?  Bitterness is a sink-hole whirlpool that sucks all the crud into oblivion.  Be careful, for you are the contact lens that’s fallen on the side of that sink bowl, and if you let the greed and the bitterness and the divil himself into your soul, you’re washed away. 

You have to cling.  You have to cling to the hope that you’ll be scooped up, washed clean and be appreciated for the vision you’ve created.

—–

‘Course it’s easy for me, I’ve just won the lottery.  All €18 million of it, but ssshh, don’t say anything.  I’m giving it all to an investor who’s just e-mailed me promising me he’ll double it within 24 hours.  Woohoo!  I just love money!  No I don’t.  It’s fake and I hate it.  I’m hoping that if I hate it enough, it’ll come to me easily and I hate that too.  It always has control, always has to be more. 

These days we forget the alternatives, the ‘I’ll scratch your back’s, the discounts, the open doors, the free eggs.  Bring the barter system back, I say!  Fuck the Department of Finance, the credit ratings and the drooping shares, it’s all just imaginary cash and it has us ruined.

It’s about time this country had a recession.  It takes a jolt to bring people back around to the right way of thinking again.  

Man, my PC’s messed up.

It took me four hours to log on to the internet today.  ‘This program is not responding - end program?’… am I going to wait around until you pull your finger out?  Hell no. 

They should have a popup box for when the PC’s all buffered out and needs some time to think.  Something like ‘Don’t end it!  Give me a chance, I can do it!!!’

I’ve pulled the plug so many times now my computer is just running on faith alone.

My ‘puter is now officially discombobulated me thinks.  Either that or I am.

So we’ve fixed the Passat and installed radios and fare meters and a brand spanking new roof-sign.

No more gazing longingly at bus-lanes in heavy traffic, no more interviewing people outside Tescos who don’t know I’m a taxi driver, no more boring waits in between jobs from the dispatch office!

Yes, groan all you like all you taxi haters and frustrated taxi-drivers, but there’s yet another taxi on the roads.  Our taxi, the relaxi-cab.  I’m gonna be the best damn Grace Jones ever.

All I have to do now is figure out how to use this fare-meter.  The installer didn’t teach us diddly-squat, all the buttons are marked with very obscure words indeed, and as for the manual?  Pft…  I wouldn’t even wipe my dip-stick with it.

First day tomorrow!  Am I scared? 

Yes.

If it snowed tomorrow I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised.

We bought a new car last month.  I protested, but the accidental terrorist insisted, pleading the fact that a 92 VW Golf is very rare being that there are only sixteen of them left in the country.  My argument of; ‘Duhh… the rest have been scrapped ‘coz they’re bangers!’ fell on deaf ears, because new cars are like strings - every yoyo wants one.  ‘It’s my best mate’s car, he wants it to go to someone who he trusts!’ was the last word, so bought it we did.  It was the first car with automatic transition that I’d ever owned so obviously I fell in love with it immediately.

Two days ago, we bought another car, a VW Passat.  The Golf was scrapped in a heartbeat.

“Don’t tell me mate, ok?” 

The Passat is lovely.  It’s very dark and slinky and automatic and tryptonic and shiny and fast and my neighbours have their eyes on it… they’re convinced we’re drug dealers so a pretty car suddenly appearing outside our house should come as no surprise, but I’m getting some pretty cryptic comments from them so I’m saying nothing, and letting them stew.  

I felt bad for TAT’s best friend, but being that he is also a yoyo, he probably won’t mind.  I missed the Golf, but only until I got to sit in the driver’s seat of bright and shiny for a trip to the local shop and I knew… this is the one.  I might marry this car - it’s absolutely perfect for this taxiiiing lark. 

Guess what?

The accidental terrorist crashed it today!

Oh how I laughed.

I stopped outside the Boomerang in Bray and he slid into my car.  He looked at me dubiously and then broke out into a sickly leer.

“I’fe nenner sheela wooni taxinirver befowar” he slurred.

“Come again?”  I strained to hear intelligeable words in the drunken murmers that followed.

“I’fe.  Never.  Seen.  A. Woman. Taxi driver. Before.” he said as though I was a deaf simpleton.  “Areyiz deaf or wha?”

“Cheeky.  Where would you like to go?”

“Your houshe.”

“Nice one.  You can babysit while me and the fella go to the pub…”

“Ah bollix.  Roigh… Ceemartnoad.”

“Sorry?”

“Sheertinapuck” he hiccuped.

My pulse raced as I got him to pronounce his address again and again, each word sounding completely different from the last.  I glance at him to find he’s gazing at my cleavage. 

“Oi!!” I shout.  “Look, it’s pissing rain out there… you sure you want to walk, sunshine?”

“Sorry, sorry…”  he winks and tells me the name of the pub he lives above.  I pull out of my parking spot and then jam on the brakes just a smidge so that he lurches forward.

“Belt up”  I suggest kindly.

“Heh heh.  Crazy bitch.  Heyy hurryup der, I have to geh home for a kip before me wankxin’.”

“Ugh.  That’s too much information, thanks.”

“Wax-in, I sed!”

“You’re getting waxed?”

“Yeah I’f ta get me chest waxed a’ half-eigh.  For chari-ee.”

“Seriously?  Fair play!  Ow  though.  What’s the charity?”

“Sain’ Cat’rins.  It’s gona hurt, I’m a hairy cunt I am…  so hairy I…”

“…Did you say Saint Catherines?!?”  I interrupted, hardly believing the irony. 

From a letter I recently got from my son’s school:

“Dear All.
St Catherines is in urgent discussions with the H S E about finance.  We are hugely in the red at the moment and both the H S E and the Department of Education are slow to come to our assistance.

We are fortunate that several fund raising events are being undertaken for us and while these cannot take the place of proper funding by the H S E and the Dept, we are greatly dependent on voluntary funds to assist in the short term.  I am appealing for your support…”

“Yeah, I’m aneeejih, I know.”

“You’re no eejit”  I give him my most loving smile. ‘You’re my hero.  My kid goes to that school.”

“Yeah?!?”  He looked pleased.  He gazed at my boobs all the way to Greystones and I didn’t mind a jot, because it occured to me that maybe the image will help soothe his dire agony later on.  Maybe when he gets to see his own nipples which have been just ripped off his chest by an over-zealous drunken waxer, my boobs will be the happy place he goes to.  It’s the least I could do.

What a nice chap…

“Hey - has anyone seen my sense of humour?”

The words bounce around inside on the cold stone walls and sink with a ‘ploop’ into a still pool below.  I hear no reply.

“Hey!  Is anyone there?  I need my sense of humour!  *silence*  What about guilt?  Come on, I know you’re here somewhere, I’ve never known you not to lurk in some dark corner somewhere.  Hello?  Pride?  Motivation?  Is anybody here?  Answer me!!!”  This last part is shouted but without much enthusiasm.

A malevolent snickering is heard from way down below me.

“Who’s that?”  I peer down into the darkness.  “Have you seen my sense of humour?”

“Yeah.”  More snickering follows.

“Who are you?  What have you done with all my stuff?”

Something small and grabby twists my stomach and makes it cramp.  I start to feel sick and wonder if I shouldn’t just go about my business and try to ignore it.

“Yeah you’d like that wouldn’t you?” the voice sneers.  “You keep doing that and I’ll keep minding all your lovely posessions in my bottle here and keep ‘em warm.  Somebody will open it someday when you least expect it and we’ll have a right laugh at you, won’t we?!?”

“Hey!!” I shout.  “That’s hardly fair!  I gave you a chance last night and you blew it.  I booked an appointment for the Big Cry and it never showed up.  I was ready, it’s not fair!”

“Heh.  You can’t force it out, cop on t’yerself!  You know what you have to do, but you’re too chicken-shit to do it.  It’s yer own fault!”

Evil cackling starts up and I feel something knaw on my solar plexus.

“Stop!!!  You’re making me feel sick and I don’t like it… I feel sick all the time now, open the damn bottle, get it over with already!”

“You have to talk to her.”

“Not a chance, matey.”

“She wants to talk to you.”

I feel bile rise in my throat and I twitch. 

“Not today.”

I light a cigarette and miss the guilt, but only a little bit.  I blow smoke-rings and wonder if being a sociopath really is such a bad thing.

I went shopping yesterday for Father’s day gifts (The Accidental Terrorist has been bugging me for Wiiks about his present, so I caved and he is now a happy Wii bunnii :), and found a copy of Twenty’s buke in Easons.

Delighted, I bought it and stashed it in the overhead compartment in my car, intending to use it as light entertainment for when I’m in between taxi-jobs.  Unfortunately it was so busy at work today that I didn’t even get a chance to read the blurb.

Then it hit me.

Overhead compartments really should only hold two books at a time, but mine holds 7 CDs, a newspaper, a coin-bag and two books so when I say it hit me… I don’t mean metaphoricalizzy.

The book slipped out of its cubby and jabbed me with its pointy corner on the crown of my head just as I was negotiating a narrow country road.  ‘GAH!’ I said, and ducked - I was appalled for a nano-second that my passenger had assaulted me, but then I spotted Twenty’s smug mug laughing at me from my lap, and I felt foolish. 

In the second it took for me to re-gain my composure, a pheasant had walked out in front of me and I hit it with a curdling thump that sounded louder than it should have.  ‘FUH!’ says I, as the bird struts back out onto the road.  Mrs. Passenger wasn’t too pleased when she saw that her eggs had broken and didn’t appreciate my sarcasm much as I pointed at the injured bird and suggested she take it home.  The bird himself mooned me, then fucked off back into the ditch presumably to a pub to tell his mates what’d happened. 

I had to take a half-hour break after Mrs. Passenger was ever-so safely disposed of to nurse me bumped noggin and recover from my poultry-abuse.

I reckon I should sue Twenty Major for loss of earnings, or at least get him to autograph it with his own blood.  His book has tested the limits of both my sanity and my overhead compartment and I’m not happy. 

This book better be damn good is all.

*Cheesy Link*

I picked up couple in the big shmoke today who wanted to return home after their pre-marriage course.

They had researched their options and had found the cheapest, shortest course there is.  They spent €150 on the course alone (plus additional donations to the Church), and they also had to spend €90 for the round-trip from Bray.  They spent six hours on a swealtering-hot Saturday listening to “pointless rubbish”, and ended up with a certificate so basic they could’ve printed it up themselves… at least they would have gotten their own names spelled right.

This couple were lovely - together for five years and at the stage where they could finish each other’s sentences, but ironically enough it was this course that set them at odds with each other from what I overheard.

The course is compulsory for all who wish to wed in a Catholic Irish church.  It basically warns a couple of the possible downfalls and short-comings a marriage can have… pretty much anything that can’t be taught, that must be learned by experience. 

*sigh*

And they wonder why I’d prefer a foreign wedding?!?

I lifted Mrs O’Leary’s swollen ankles into the passenger’s side of my car.  I could tell she was embarrassed and angry with life that she should be in the position to ask a perfect stranger to do so, so I made light small-talk as I sat back in the driver’s seat.  Mrs O’Leary was quiet, she seemed tired… her lump of groceries in the boot was a fair reason for this, so I turned on the air-flow and pumped up the radio volume…

-settling *groan* from O’Leary-

… and animated voices filled the car as I drove toward Soldier’s Row.  Matt Cooper was fiercely battling for the last word with several hot headed YESsers and NOers of this hilarious Lisbon Treaty, and  I confess to going ’round a rind-about maybe too many times just to hear what this one lady (Kathy Sinnot) had to say.  When she finished her point, she received a round of applause and my passenger collapsed beside me with laughter.  It was a most wonderful and welcome sound.

“Jaysus but that clinches it for me!  I’m gonna vote NO just to piss them off!”  she began to breathe quickly and excitedly and I knew a rant was on it’s way.  “It’s gas… nobody really knows what’s goin’ on!  I was watchin’ a chap get de twenty questions dere on d’telly last night - sure de more he said de more confused he go’ -  I’ve never heard anyone say so much withou’ sayin’ so little!!!  Now here’s yer one… she’s got them by the bollix and they haven’t a clue what to say ‘coz they haven’t read the feckin’ thing either!!!”  she collapses with laughter once more.

“Think abourd’i… “  she says, breathing her giggles out “…if we all vote NO at least they’ll org’nise it better the next time ’round!”

I had to admire her logic.  I’m not really comfortable either signing a contract that’s written in double-dutch.  And those posters?!?!  Please.  Those slogan’s aren’t even impressing the village idiot.

I’m proud to be European, I like this neck of the woods.  I’m not sure that I trust Ireland’s system fully, they seem to be making a lot of dodgy choices lately.

(I’m playing ‘Sim City’ on the Nintender DS in between fares in the taxi these days.  I tried raising taxes and decreasing funding on public health, transport and education to free up more funds and guess what?  The poplulation all fucked off to find better living elsewhere… haven’t we all dreamed about doing that?  Why are we still here?!!)

So I’m thinking… maybe it’s a double-bluff?  Maybe the NOers found the small print and are scrutinizing the things that probably won’t happen? It just seems like the original ink has had coffee spilled on it-  it’s just a blurred mess and now everybody’s trying to remember what it might have said.

I’m saying NO on this, the 5th of June with nine days to go.  The YES people had better all shut up, or make some factual sense in that time because otherwise you’re just pissing me off.

(Toxic Steve)

I love my Ireland - she’s beautiful but she’s run by muppets.  I like to think of her as independant, but that might just be my blood talking…

“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies… The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people.”

Are these just pretty words?

Mrs O’Leary sure had a bounce in her step after she tipped me €5.  I think she saw the light.

(Don’t click this link by the way.)