Happy St. Patrick’s Day all! Yes, I know that the real holiday is Tuesday, but if your city is anything like mine, this was the weekend for the celebratin’ aka all-day drinking, and a ton of fun. And this year, as an added treat, the worst cab ride ever. Keep in mind, this is coming from a girl who once endured a New York City cab ride to La Guardia after consuming three very strong mimosas. But that came nowhere near the cab ride of this weekend.
It started with a normal cab ride to one of Chicago’s many Irish-themed pub, where My Guy and I met up with a group of his friends for a day of drinks. I had some ciders and two shots of Jameson (that’s right!), and about seven hours later (around 6:00 or so) we were ready to move on to meet another group of people. Eight of us split into two cabs. And then it got interesting.
First of all, it being St. Patty’s weekend, cabs have been used all day, and there was something fruity and foamy in the backseat, that one member of our group insisted on telling me repeatedly was some sort of bodily fluid as I sat impossibly close to it. Then, our cabbie turned the wrong way down a one-way street. My Guy sat up front next to him, and I can only imagine it was even worse for him to stare down the cars facing us. And as our cabbie backed-up, pulled forward and backed up over and over to turn around, people on the street laughed at us and then we were on our way. Still with the fruity goo awfully close.
Then our cabbie missed the turn and proceeded to back up on the crowded Chicago street. I turned around and saw myself staring down a bus. Finally he got on the street and made his way to one of our cross streets. And something (experience) told me not to trust this driver. I peaked over the partition to make sure he was turning right. He had his left signal. “Um, no. The street is right from here…You need to turn right!” I commanded. He finally did and he got to our second destination. Whereupon said cabbie got maybe an 80 cent tip.
I think we were too generous.
Wow – sounds like fun ride. Did you ever find out what the goo was?
Now you have me listening to room for squares.
That’d be a big fat NO for going out to celebrate St. Paddy’s Day. You’ll hear more from me tomorrow, but just all kinds of eiwww. The question really, though, isn’t whether I care, but whether you had fun?
Ha! I’m surprised his tip wasn’t two cents…and by that I mean you told him to learn how to drive. Period. The end.
oh man, i have had a LOT of terrible cab rides – and none of them were in nyc
one bac one was when i asked a cab to take me to metro center (the BIGGEST and most central metro stop in dc) and they’d never heard of it. it was one of those guys who spends the entire cab ride on the phone w/another cab buddy, so i suggested he ask his buddy the address. 20 mins later, i ended up at a completely different metro stop, on the wrong line. SO HELPFUL.
glad you had fun, though!!
Oh man, I hate crappy cab drivers. And unidentifiable goo, fwiw!
Cxx
Oh, how completely frustrating. At least you made it to your destination safely.
Oh wow…that’s just ridiculous. And I feel you WAY overtipped!
So survived St. Patrick Day, did you?
I once rode in a cab where the cab driver insisted on telling me everything about his life. By the time I got off, I felt he should be tipping me, not the other way around.
Just for the sake of clarification, the only reason the man got a “tip” was because no one really wanted to deal with the coins. If there had been five cents left over, that would have been the tip.
Goodness! I must say, that does sound overly generous. I guess you didn’t have exact change, eh?
Just for clarification: I posted my comment before reading yours