Finally… I get a blog just as everyone else buggers off to twitter (I’ve got twitter as well, not that anyone is bothered!)
I should maybe explain what this is all about and who I am, so I’ll start at the beginning… I’m a forty two year old single bloke, who lives with his dog. All the neighbours think I am weird (which I may well be, I’m not sure you know if you are weird when its you who is weird!) I live with my dog Boo and I often find myself wandering country lanes with him wondering why my life is less than productive (it might be something to do with the fact that I am always walking the dog when I should be working).
So… on the advice of a friend, I’ve started a blog. its not going to be about my infrequent ventures in stand up, writing or acting, although hopefully they will pop up occasionally.
This is going to be about what happens in my cab when I am working of a night, which tends to be a lot more interesting than the rest of my life… hopefully!
For instance, take Friday night, a ten minute soap opera played out en route to Aintree (you can keep your live editions of eastenders… this blew that out of the water!)
I picked up at a social club in Childwall. An attractive forty something lady came to the car, well spoken, slightly drunk and apologising in advance for her husband who was, as she so delicately put it, “pissed”.
Husband showed up and to be honest, he was drunk, but not too bad. A bit loud but he seemed in good spirits and also apologised for being a bit tipsy (I’m guessing drunk people will feature frequently in these stories!)
Off we set, initially they seemed happy, wife up front with me and him sprawled on the back seat. They did the usual, which is slag off the other people who had been at the party (apparently it was a wedding and Aunty Marie had made a “show of herself”) but very quickly, and I don’t know why, the mood became very dark between them.
Husband asked why wife had sat up front with me. Now this is always a worry as a cabby, some women like to have a flirt, and this can be awkward when a drunken husband is sitting less than three feet away! But I honestly didn’t feel that this lady was flirting with me, I just think she didn’t want to sit next to her drunken husband! I often am quite chatty with passengers, but I’d made a decision to let these two keep the conversation to themselves and I was sitting firmly on the sidelines as the storm clouds grew. I’d noticed that wife was scrolling through messages on a mobile phone she was holding. I’d assumed it was hers and she’d called the cab on it. Hubby suddenly asked “where’s me phone?” wife replied “here”
At this husband suddenly burst into life, he jumped forward and frantically started to grab the phone off his wife, who wasn’t going to hand it over, no matter what he tried!
“Give it here! Give it here! I only gave it to you to ring the cab!”
“No! I’m looking at it, whats your problem? Why don’t you want me to look at it?”
This went on for a moment with husband reaching across, in the end I had to tell him to “sit the f**k down or I’ll have to stop and you’ll get out”
He apologised and they sat in silence, wife put the phone back into her handbag and an awkward truce developed, or that’s what I thought,
“why are you pushing the back of my seat?” said wife
“I’m not” said husband
I glanced at husband who nodded to me in a “its okay mate I’ll not cause any problems” kind of way.
By now I was thinking “I’m going to end up fighting here” and getting that flight or fight feeling but the moment seemed to pass and the car quietened down. We arrived at their home address and the lady reached across and squeezed my knee before getting out ( doesn’t happen often and gave me a bit of a start!). Husband got out and quickly caught up to her and whispered in her ear, she ignored him and went into the house as he returned to the car to pay me.
“Sorry mate” he said “she was taking the piss”
“I’m not sure mate, its fourteen quid”
“there is nothing on my phone” (a little to forcibly)
“whatever mate, nothing to do with me, fourteen quid please”
“she just wanted to wind me up”
“fourteen please”
“thinks i’m having an affair”
silence
“How much was that?”
And he paid me and I watched him walk back into the house. I’m guessing they had a real ding dong domestic that night, about the phone, the journey, the “affair” and possibly even the cab driver, maybe even Aunty Marie.
As I drove away, I couldn’t help wondering, how a nice night out had turned so quickly into a full blown fight, how a couple who are probably quite nice people would wash their dirty laundry in front of a total stranger and, more importantly, how thick the walls where in their house… because I’m guessing the neighbours had to listen to an awful lot of shouting before dawn!
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