Ya Never Know

Why stay so late? Asks the wannabees They all leave as the day drivers arrive at 3 or 4 am. they aren't real cab drivers only rookies who don't know how to make money and it is great that they don't because it helps me make a living.

I come in at 4pm and stay until 6am. Yes I know that it is long but as one old cabbie once told me "you gotta stay in the car to make money" SO I do and the money follows.

Also a wise old man also told me this "Liam, Ya Never Know!" Meaning you will never know what will or could happen and there will always be surprises. If he reads this and he might, I wanna say it is the best advice he ever gave me, and I often find my self sitting in the cab saying to my self,

"Liam, Ya Never Know!"

Early Thursday Morning after the rookies went home I got a call to go to Tower St, over on the west side of the city. My dispatch said "89 head over to tower street and meet the police they have a passenger for you and have a nice trip"

Now most of the time when the dispatcher says "have a nice trip" it means your headed out of town. In this case I was headed to St. Stephen. A $120.00 fare. I arrived and was greeted by Saint John's finest. They kindly helped me load this lady's bags into my trunk and the lady cop put her hand on my shoulder and whispered " she's ok, just had a fight with her daughter and we had to come break it up...... Oh yeah......and she's a little nuts"

A little nuts??? Holy shit..... this lady was more jumpy than a sparrow on Jolt cola. She was very upset with her daughter and kept talking to herself about the whole situation. It was a stressful 75minutes to the boarder town. She constantly wanted to smoke in the car and she wasn't taking no for an answer. Fighting with her about My rules would have resulted in me putting duct tape across her mouth and shoving her in the trunk. So Asthma inhaler in one hand and a cigarette in the other she was lighting up like clock work every 15minutes. I really fail to understand smokers.

SO every 15 minutes she stuck her head out the window right up until I dropped her off next to the boarder.

Being the stupid genius that I am I neglected to grasp that I had already driven most of the night and I was low on fuel when I reached St. Stephen at 4am. After dropping off my Smokey cargo I went on the hunt for Gas. Well wouldn't you know there are no gas stations that stay open over night in St. Stephen.

They all open at 7am, a shitty notion at 4am but not with out a solution. A short trip across the boarder was in order. So here I was at 4am trying to explain why I wanted to enter the good Ol US of A just to re-fuel my jet and fly back to SJ. Our armed friends south of the boarder spent the next 30minutes turning my taxi upside down and hauling the carpet up in the trunk to find the 3000 pounds of invisible hash I had stashed back there. After finding out that I was not driving a stolen car and understanding I wasn't a criminal fleeing Canada they made me fill out some paperwork and let me pass, not with out giving me the absolute best directions to the closest gas station.

Concluding my business in America, I made for Canada and was back on home soil in a 10 minute round trip minus my 30minutes with US Customs. Returning to my home country was quite funny. Canada customs greeted me with a big smile at quarter to 5 in the morning and asked "anything to declare" and I said "Just cheap gas", she smiled and said have a nice day and sent me back out into the darkness and home to Saint John.

Here's a paradox Gas in the US was 10 bucks cheaper to fill the cab and it was the same gas that sells here in Saint John and is refined here. I have resolved that the boarder is a magic line that turns gas cheaper some how. Then I remember that Iraq's best friend "W" is the magician and the magical line we call the boarder is only an illusion.

"American Go Juice"

"Tastes like the Canadian counterpart with slightly more of a Gold taste"