Paradise Driver: 03/16/07

Friday, March 16, 2007

JUST WHEN YOU THINK...

...THAT NOTHING ELSE COULD GO WRONG.

IT DOES!

At 5:17am, this morning, I am sitting at my desk, at home, when my phone rings. It's my "special" that I was supposed to pick up at 5:15am. I had forgotten all about her. Called dispatch and had a cab sent immediately. Her next two rides with me will be "freebies". I screwed up, badly.

The good news from yesterday was that I finally had a hot shower. It felt great.

Get to the garage and someone had driven ONE-NINE during the day. They parked it almost too close to another unit. I was just barely able to open the driver's door. I had left ONE-NINE full of fuel but found it had barely 1/4 of a tank left. The left headlight was blown. What else could go wrong? Logged on and was assigned to the 9th position in the line up.

9th!!

Oh, gawd!

Actually, it could have been worse. TMR (#27) started his vacation on Thursday, he'll be back on the 24th, and if he had been there I would have been 10th.

Thank you fates for that little favor.

There were no reservations.

Almost 3 hours later, 9:47pm, I get my first fare.

3 HOURS!!

Give me a friggin' break.

It started raining about 8:00pm, again. Rain cancels most people's plans to go out at night on Mau'i. By 11:15pm we were down to just "Crazy" Brian (#09) and me. With only 2 cabs working we both thought that we would start raking in the money. Our pants pockets would be so full of greenbacks that we would look like we suffered from a massive double hernia. We were wrong. The calls were few and far between. I did get a dispatch for a wonderful run from Kihei up the mountain to Kula Town. He didn't have any cash for a deposit. His girlfriend was going to pay me when we arrived. Why is it that those type of runs ALWAYS have something hinky about them? I really wanted that trip but not without some twinge of getting paid. I call his girlfriend. Sure enough, she was planning on paying for the cab.

"What credit card do you take?"

DAMN!
DAMN!
DAMN!
DAMN!
DAMN!

We don't take plastic and I didn't go to Kula. One call during the solo hours and he wasn't there when I arrived. Called him back and it was

"I'm sorry. A friend came by and picked me up."

@#$%&+*!

Flor (#27) and Prim (#22) checked in prior to 4:30am and I had a brain fart and went home. Totally forgeting my 5:15am "special".

I am headed to bed shortly. Hopefully this bad karma won't follow me over to my "tomorrow".

***

Ambrosia still hasn't opened yet. By the look of the pic above, it doesn't look like it will be anytime soon. It is the new bar that is going into where Neptune's used to be.

***

Still no sign of the missing swimmer that I spoke of yesterday. About 50% of missing swimmers are never found. Latest news story.

***

According to Glenn James, Mau'i's great meteorologist, the weather should start improving today. Albeit with very gusty trade winds in the forecast. The weather this past week caused 2 major accidents, one was a fatal. Very sad.

Thanks for stopping by. If you can, would you please send some GOOD Karma my way. I sure could use it. Come back by tomorrow, maybe things will be better. I really appreciate you visits.

Mahalo and Aloha!

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