Memes In My Taxi - Part One

Hookers

I'd like to take a minute here to talk about my fellow night workers, the prostitutes of Saskatoon.

I want to start off by saying that from a business perspective the prostitute industry is quite fascinating. Hookers, at least in Saskatoon, do not dress like hookers you see in movies. They do not approach you. They do not dress slutty, and they are not aggressive. They don't really advertise themselves in any way. For the last four years, I've been learning about businesses and how to create awareness of your product, of your brand, of your image...and here's an industry doing the opposite. Just interesting I suppose...

With all this secrecy, it's extraordinary to note how everybody still knows what the prostitution situation is in the city. A few months back, most of the hookers in Saskatoon moved from 20th street to 19th street....and almost everyone in the city knew about it. It was the topic of conversation in my cab, common knowledge that the hookers had moved. This information is only so good though. While people still talk about the hookers being on 19th street, their move actually only lasted a couple weeks. After that, they moved back to their regular spots on 20th street.

Some more information about hookers:

1) they usually don't work that late. After midnight you don't see that many out on the corners.
2) real hookers dress in sweatpants and hoodies, and don't advertise themselves
3) real hookers stand on corners west of the traintracks (between Ave L and Ave J)
4) police sting hookers stand on corners east of the traintracks, and they advertise. If you see a 'hooker' advertising themselves flamboyantly near the top of the alphabet, drive around the corner, there will be a cop car with all its lights turned out.
5) the officer who poses as a hooker is short with blond, spiky hair. Occasionally a brown-haired native officer poses as the hooker, she is more convincing...but the blond is more aggressive.

Due to conversations in my cab I've learned the following about hookers:

-if you bring 'the stuff', you get a discount
-business is conducted at the hooker's place
-hookers with kids ask for a few extra bucks to send their kids to the store and get them out of the house
-the best hookers are around Ave N, the more west you get from that, the worse they are.

I feel no reason to justify myself as to why I know all this. Hookers are an attraction of this city, if I'm driving people who don't live here and we go down 20th street I make a note of pointing it out. People are interested in the hooker situation....that's just the way things are. Think about it, when you saw this blog title, were you indifferent? Or were you interested in reading about hookers? Maybe it's just because it's still so taboo and yet still so very visible and a part of our society.

I'd like to end off by saying 'No', despite the suggestion I received tonight, I do not plan on befriending hookers in order to attain a discount.

I hope this was informative.

Blame The Devil Rabbit

I justify what happened tonight by the following excuses:

1. He was probably speeding
2. Technically, he hit me
3. Stonebridge is stupid
4. It's the rabbit's fault

If I had taken the night off last night....I would have broken even, a man on a motorcycle would have driven down Hartley Road, an average drive home, and I probably would have stayed in watching movies in my underwear.

Instead...

I sat parked at an intersection in Stonebridge, where I would usually turn left and head away from this treacherous neighbourhood, where I have had more problem customers than in the alphabet jungle and Sutherland combined. However, fate had other plans (cue dramatic music). Out of the corner of my eye I saw a jackrabbit running down the sidewalk to the right. As it was a slow evening I decided to pursue the rabbit. It wasn't long before my pursuit proved fruitless and the rabbit hopped off into a nearby backyard. I drove for a few more blocks and decided the filth of Stonebridge was no longer worthy of my presence. With no traffic in sight I weaved right into an avenue with the intention of buying room to make a leftward u-turn. I check my rearview mirror one more time, weaved left, an-OH MY GOD THERE"S A MOTORCYCLE!

Screech!

Thunk!

...and a man on a motorcycle rolls on down the road.

I immediately ran off after him. After cursing me out for a few minutes he said that he didn't need an ambulance but that I should call the cops. A few minutes later his friends showed up, and then a few minutes after that the cops showed up. After figuring out he was okay, my thoughts began to turn other implications this might have. Do I still have my license (already a few points off)? Do I still have a job? Can I still afford to go to Ukraine this summer? I had never been in this situation so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was also feeling generally terrible and almost freaking out.

Fortunately, everything after this went smoothly. Despite a couple scratches the driver of the motorcycle was okay. He shook my hand and said there were no hard feelings about this. The cop was really good about it all and convinced his sergeant that what I did was not reckless driving and instead was just an improper lane change. This reduced my fine from $280 to $125 and only one point off my license instead of three. With the money I 'saved' I offered to buy them a couple 40s but they declined, shrugged their shoulders, and said: 'shit happens'.

So in the end it all worked out. With the time I missed and a $125 fine in pocket, I ended up losing $30 on the night....but that's only $3 an hour when you think of it....that I paid in order to have the privilege of driving drunk assholes around.

Could have been a lot worse....

In other news, I have a BlackBerry, which means I have unlimited internet while I'm driving.....which means Twitter.

@CarsonWid (<-------tweets posted on left-hand side of blog)

...still getting used to it, will post random updates about customers and will use the blog for ranting.