Cab drivers pick people up from all around town, sometimes even from out of town - many of which might be under the influence and well, not in the best condition to drive. So that's pretty much-wasted, foreigners. Now that's got to make for some of the most interesting overheard conversations.
(Content has been edited for clarity).
‘It Happened!’
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“I asked a taxi driver a couple of months back what was the weirdest thing that ever happened in his taxi. He said there were two elderly women in the back seat and they were talking quite loud about normal stuff, then all of a sudden they both went quiet, and there was a bad smell in the car.
The taxi driver said he didn’t want to say anything, but he heard one woman mention quietly to the other, ‘it happened’ the other replied ‘what happened?’ and the whispered ‘I’ve pooped myself.’
He said they didn’t say much else the rest of the trip, then got out at a house and tipped him 100 percent of the fare.”
Going Down Town
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“During the day, I had a couple get in around 1 p.m. in downtown Chicago, so I asked the ‘where to?’ The guy looked at me and told me to drive around the city. He told his girlfriend that it was time to suck him off. He then unzipped, and she started going to town, even though you could see she was shocked. I decided to drive around lower wacker for about 25 minutes. He finished and said, ‘stop anywhere.’ I stopped, and he handed me a hundred. She stayed in the cab and he walked away. This was my first experience being near other people getting intimate, let alone in my cab. She asked if I could take her home, so I did. During the trip, she was telling me that if she didn’t do what that man said that he would leave her. I tried telling her that that wasn’t healthy. When I dropped her off, she tried to pay, but I refused the payment claiming the meter wasn’t on so I wouldn’t charge her.
The reason you can’t stop people from doing anything like that in Chicago is the rules state they can’t be interrupted unless they can be seen in public.”
Back To The Bronx
“I drove for a black car service for about two years. Since I was fairly clean cut and reliable they started giving me ‘Board of Education’ jobs: driving problem children and their parents to what I affectionately referred to as ‘prison schools.’ These were isolated schools, usually out in the country with higher security to accommodate students with behavioral, emotional, or mental issues.
Anyway, I had to take a mom and her kid from the Bronx to Pennsylvania. The kid (I think he was 17) had severe emotional disturbance and developmental issues and did not want to go back to his school. The entire trip he was begging her not to send him back, while she tried to calm him down.
Midway through New Jersey, I heard a lot of action in the back seat, and she asked me to pull over. It turns out her son had hidden away a kitchen knife in his bag and was trying to stab either his mom or himself to avoid going back. She wrestled the knife away from him in a fast food parking lot, and we turned around and headed back to the Bronx.”
An Uncomfortable Break-Up
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“An uncomfortable break-up. The girl was kicking a cheating guy to the curb after finding out he’d been unfaithful with some of her (former) friends. It started with picking them and two of his buddies up from a bar. I dropped one guy off at his house, then dropped the buddy off at the cheater’s house. The girlfriend insisted on being dropped off at her place, with the dumpee alternating between trying to patch things up enough to at least get laid one last time and trying to justify his past behavior. I finally had to drop off the newly single jerk back at his parents’ place. That was more than a solid hour of cringeworthy uncomfortableness.
Another night, I picked up a couple from a different bar. They proceeded to get freaky in the back of my town car. I didn’t watch, but I’m pretty sure she was giving a handy and/or blowie while getting fondled down there. Later that night I found a promise ring (or maybe a broken-promise ring) in the back seat.
There have been a few instances of plastered girls getting into the front seat and passing out on my shoulder (sometimes without giving an address and giving only vague directions).
On an unrelated note, if you want to pick me up for a one-nighter when I’m picking you up from the bar, don’t be so impaired you slur your words and/or pass out before I get you home. It’s off-putting and not worth me going out of service for any length of time.”
Too Soon
“I drove a taxi in Galway City, Ireland, for nearly two years when I was 25 years old. One time, late in the night at about 3 a.m., I was driving a couple eastwards to the sticks. In my rearview mirror, the headlights of the car behind me suddenly disappeared. Looking in my wing-mirrors, I could see that the car was still there. It was dark in the car, with no streetlamps, so I couldn’t see what was happening. I figured one of the passengers was leaning forward to talk to me. I half-turned and noticed that the girl had climbed up on the male’s lap and they were kissing.
Not wanting to interrupt, I kept my mouth shut and continued driving. The tension in the car built up to the point where I could physically feel it and not just in my tightening underwear (she was stunning). As I slowed to take a turn-off (excuse the pun), the road-noise quietened, and I could hear her whispering ‘Take it out, undo your trousers.’ I wasn’t so sure I could let them go that far. I didn’t want to be cleaning some guy’s children off of the back seat. Before I could build up speed, and thus, road-noise, and lose the gem that was his reply, I heard him say ‘I’ve come in my pants.’ After she repeatedly questioned, loudly, whether or not he was kidding, she climbed off and sat back in her seat. The feeling of tension quickly gave way to humiliation, while I suddenly had a coughing fit to cover up my laughing.”
Sometimes Passengers Refuse To Pay…
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“Well, the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced driving a cab was being an attempt at being robbed by a customer who disagreed with the meter.
As I stopped, he threw a fit over the meter (being 281 kroner) and refused to pay. I told him promptly that it was either him paying, or me driving him down to the police station.
At that point, he turned to me and said with an eerie, calm voice that he knew where my alarm button was located and that he did prefer if I did not push it. At the same time, murder is shining from his eyes, and he has a knife in his hand. He repeated himself as I am about to press the alarm button.
At that moment, I knew that I was more or less dead. A robber who has to repeat himself usually tends to escalate the situation. I looked back at him, straight in the eyes, and asked him what it was it going to be. The dude sat there staring me back in the eyes and said he wanted my money. I said I would comply, but add that I’d prefer that he at least paid for the fare.
Then he got this funny and rather bizarre facial expression, put the knife away, and found his credit card. He told me then to continue to not press the alarm button, but rather let him pay. So he paid, then got out of the cab and left.
As I sat back in my cab completely dumbfounded, thinking what the heck just happen. The cops told me there wasn’t anything they could do as he paid the fare and never stole anything.”
The Kinky Elderly Couple
“I worked for a taxi company that only took fares from the local casino to wherever – it did no pickups except that casino. I was paid $100 a day to be able to taxi for them, their cars, but you pay for gas beyond one tank, and cleanup beyond what you can do with the shop vacuums in the garage. It was mostly old people who wanted to get home after losing money or winning some money to break even or whatever. I never got good tips. A few people who had one too many drinks were trying to figure out whose home they were going to use to hook up. A few drop-offs at local hotels. This casino is just now building a hotel. A few times where the person was about to puke, so I pulled over and let them puke. I only had it spray against the car once as the window was down and he just stuck his head out the window and puked. The wind pushed it right back against the car, and that was not a fun clean up. I once had three pukers in the car, one on herself and two into bags that I started putting in the back seat pouch. I still had to clean up though. The only fare that stood out though was a couple probably in their late-40s or early 50s.
The gentleman had on a nice blue suit and looked the business type, the lady was a rail-thin brunette in clothes that just weren’t made for her. They were tight on her seeming bolted on on the chest, lose on the stomach, tight on the hips and baggy on calves. They both had one too many drinks and were both loud, yelling at me on where to go. The car kept shifting, and the woman was laughing the entire time. Then the couple started arguing, and she kept telling him to relax. It turned out she made him put a behind plug in, and he was having trouble with it after too much food and too many drinks – hence the squirming. It was odd to hear, and she was like ‘you know you love it, watch what I’m going to do to you when we are at your place.’ I picked that couple up like two more times and each time she made him wear some kink device, and he complained/bragged about it in the cab each time. I was even invited up once but nope.”
Meet The Loch Ness Monster
“Not a taxi driver but this one time I was riding in a taxi in NYC, with my then girlfriend (now ex), and we started to talk about marriage, kids, and the future. Now this all sounds normal, right? The weird part was that the taxi driver talked about how when she was younger, she had these fish that she liked to play with back in Scotland, her homeland. She told us about how she would play with these fish and let them touch her and swim with her. But then the whole conversation got dark.
She told us stories about how when she was a young girl she would often swim in the lake near her village as it was always very refreshing. She liked to play games where she would swim out and stalk the fishermen while they were on the lake (she was a very strong swimmer). She liked to play a game where she would sneak up on them, rock their boat until they were off balance and flip their boat over (tossing them off with all their supplies. She would then drag them down and see how much they would resist. Often, the fishermen would not make it back up as she was too strong of a swimmer and descended too deep too fast.
After being sufficiently creeped out, I asked how much the fare was. She said, ‘I need about tree fiddy.’ It was at that moment that I realized that I was in a rather large taxi and the Loch Ness Monster had been driving us around the whole time.”
Fraudsters
“A few years back when I was still working as a taxi driver I picked up a Turkish businessman from the airport. The guy seemed very happy, and he said he had come to the country to finish a huge deal that would allow him to retire soon. I took him to the address he thought the meeting was supposed to be held only to find out there was a small empty office with a fake phone number on the door.
I did some investigating into this ‘company’ he had made a deal with and it became clear that the company he was dealing with had been bankrupt for few years.
The guy didn’t understand me at all when I tried to tell him that he had been scammed and he should go to the police. When he finally realized what was going on he completely broke down and told me he had already sent over his products worth of almost 100 000€ and the contract he came for would have been for another 900 000€.
I was also shocked because of this, and we just sat silently in my car for about 15 minutes and then he finally broke the ice by asking where he could he get some female workers. I laughed and told him a place where it shouldn’t be too hard to find some. After I had dropped him off, I noticed there was an envelope left on the back seat that had noted only saying ‘Thank you’ and 500 euros in cash.
Three years have passed, and I still feel bad for that guy and hope he got his money or products back. I would honestly give the 500 euros just to meet him again over dinner to hear how things turned out.”
The Rapper Kid
“I have to go a bit back for background information…so I was a taxi driver in a city near the East Coast. I was there for two years before I saw a kid in a park get the snot beat out of him and it scared me that this wasn’t the city I wanted to be.
After considering a few cities, I moved to Los Angeles because the pay for taxi drivers was good there and it was a pretty place.
My first day on the job was the day I arrived in LA. I set everything up beforehand so I could start as soon as possible. (I feel bad for people I had on the first day because I hadn’t showered since the day before leaving).
I drove up to the airport and searched for people that needed me, and I finally saw a guy calling me.
I drove up next to him, and I was shocked to find out that it was the same kid who I saw get beat up back on the East Coast. He got in my car, and I turned around to tell him of this strange coincidence, but as I opened my mouth he screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘YO HOMES, TO BEL AIR!’
I drove him to his destination, and he was rapping the entire way there.
By far the strangest customer I’ve ever had.”
‘She Punched Me In The Head’
“I drove a taxi for about five years during college. One New Year’s Eve a couple got in and wanted to go across the city which was about a 30-minute fare. As soon as I pulled away from the curb, the woman turned to the man and said that she wanted to be with him, but only if she could sleep with other men as well. As you can imagine, this didn’t go over very well, and it was a long ride. I got the impression that this was a total surprise to the man. When they got out, she threw the fur coat she was wearing at him, and he picked it up and gave it to me. They never claimed that coat.
Another couple got into my cab one night and sat in the back seat. At the time, there were no barriers between the driver and the back. When the man asked the woman if she would mind him asking me to take part in the threesome she had ‘promised’ him, (I’m a female) she pulled back her fist and punched me in the side of my head as I was driving. I don’t know why she didn’t punch him!”
A Fatal Match
“I drove a cab in LA back in the early ’90s. It was an old Checker cab, and the fare specifically hired me to wait in the alley outside of a sports arena. There was some big boxing match that night; I guess because that guy apparently jumped out a window into a dumpster before getting in the cab! He was a boxer who apparently had just finished a match, and was still in his trunks and such.
Now, I had been listening to the radio, and a guy had just got knocked out in the last match. A couple of minutes later, they announce that the guy DIED!
I was intrigued, so I asked…and yep, he just killed that other boxer.”
‘About Three Fiddy’
“I drove a cab in Baltimore for about six years in the ’90s after my divorce. One night, I was picking up these two young women from a bar downtown, and I could tell they were gone, so I was already worried about the fare being covered. They were also both ridiculously attractive. The kind of women who typically pay me no attention.
So they stumbled in and were giggling, joking, arguing over where to give directions, and were pretty much all over each other being very touchy-feely. Both were wearing skirts and tube tops. So I begin driving to where I believed was one of their homes. I was merging on to the highway, and they’re both crazy rowdy in the back, yelling, taking pictures, flashing the camera and I’m trying to stay focused, but come on. Two beautiful women were pulling their shirts down in the backseat. Then one says, ‘God, I just wanted to get laid tonight, why do some boys have so much trouble being men?’ The the other one slurs, ‘The night is young’ to which the other yells, ‘hey cabbie, when’s your shift over? We got some rolls and an empty apartment!’ It seemed a boyfriend was out of town.
So, I was getting back off the highway, trying to ignore the situation that was becoming both very arousing and obnoxious. We pulled up to an apartment complex, and there was a panic in the back seat. It seemed one of them left her purse at the bar and couldn’t. I knew it. So they invite me in where they assured me there would be cash or a credit card. I said ‘I’d wait in the car.’
Ten minutes pass, then 15 and they were passed out, and I’m knocking on 20 minutes of waiting. I walked to the door, knocked and wait some more. The door is ajar, so I push it and step in. Both are mostly naked in the kitchen, making out and giggling over some spilled shot glasses and then stop when they see me. I’m angry about money, but I hadn’t dated anyone in years, and these two looked like Victoria’s Secret models. One bites her lip and smiles, and the other walks up to me and puts my hands on her amazing young chest and moved them around and whispers in my ear, ‘so how much do we owe you again?’. I knew I had to choose my next words carefully and I said: ‘About tree fiddy.'”