JUST AS I PREDICTED

WE WERE BUSY

"Maggie" and me in front of the
Maui Coast Hotel's Christmas tree

Logged on and Art, the owner, was still doing the dispatching. He kept at it until 9:30pm. I speculated earlier that we would probably have a lot of unscheduled OGG runs and I was right. Besides myself and Hardin (#25) Tina (#5) and Kimo(#22) came in on their days off. We also had one dayshift holdover. That still wasn't enough. Many times there wasn't a single cab in south Mau'i, we were all doing the loop to the airport. At 9:30pm, #25 took over dispatch and the day cab and #5 called it a night. Anybody leaving for OGG after that is not going to make their flight. It became a regular Saturday night and three cabs was just the correct number for the volume and frequency of calls. Everybody made money. My solo hours added to the till and the first of my reliefs showed up at 4:20am, the second following in at 4:40am. I was in my house before 5:00am. Ah, my weekend starts.

Newlyweds Steve & Sarah
Chicago, Illinois USA

Drove 153 miles and covered 17 runs. The meter/mileage ratio was appropriate and not one obnoxious fare.

The only incident of note was a trip I had to Kahului (center of the island). Dispatched at 11:27pm and made the pickup at 11:34pm, two employees of Jack-in-the-Box, a western regional fastfood "choke & puke". Just as we are pulling away a La Bella Taxi, out of Kahului, pulls up next to me and complains that I stole his fare. I just ignored him. One of the guys in the backseat says that they had called La Bella but that was over 1/2 hour ago and they were tired of waiting. So they called Royal. As I was exiting Harbor Lights, after dropping, a La Bella Taxi was waiting for me at the gate. The female driver flagged me over and started chewing me out for stealing her driver's fare. After listening to her rants for about 30 seconds, I told her that her driver was a fucking liar and that she could go fuck herself. I left her standing there with a shocked look on her face. I am sorry, but that is the way most cabbies communicate with each other. Its a "dog-ear-dog" business.

---

THE PICTURE GALLERY

MORE OF THE "BACKSIDE"

***

"Let's all be careful out there!"