The Birmingham Sojournal - Day One

To be fair and honest, I didn't journal every day. Hell, I didn't journal at all! But, as this series of posts is a relatively accurate account — written as much as nearly a month after the fact — of the daily doings during my recent trip to Birmingham, England, IT'S A FRIGGIN' JOURNAL!

22 October 2010, Friday
Things did not go as planned. I don’t know why I ever thought they would. I worked through the night in the taxi, and that was uneventful. I had a late airport run which sounded off right about the time I had planned to leave for the 303 Taxi office, scheduling me for a pickup in Arlington Heights 20 minutes later, and setting me back about a half-hour in my schedule, after going out of my way to the airport to drop off the customer, and after waiting extra time for the tardy customer to get his shit together.

At the office, I turned in the taxi and the spare key, all very quickly, and then I went outside and tried to ask the first taxi driver who came out of the office if he could drive me to the Rosemont Blue Line station. The first guy said, “Yes, of course...in five minutes...I have to find my phone.” He crawled around in his car for a few seconds.

“Dial me, please,” he asked in his heavily accented English (I think he’s Indian). I didn’t hear him at first. “Dial my phone please!”

He dictated his phone number and I dialed it. It took two tries for him to locate it at the bottom of a cloth shopping bag full of stuff as it rang, but he did find it. then he said, “I’ll be one minute,” and he went back inside the building.

Ten minutes later, and about 5 minutes too late for me to catch the 9:18 Metra train from Jefferson Park, which set my schedule back another hour, another taxi driver came out of the 303 office. He took me to the Rosemont Station for free, but asked me along the way how much I make. When I told him, he was shocked. Not in a good way. For me. I spent the rest of the day rather depressed about it.

I seized the opportunity of the nearly 90-minute wait (I missed the 9:18 by about ten minutes, exactly the amount of time that stupid “I’ll be one minute” idiot made me wait) to get breakfast at McDonald’s. Since I had the time to eat in, I got the steak, egg & cheese bagel with the round egg instead of the scrambled. Either they changed something in the ingredients, or I’m just jaded, because it has never tasted as good as it did in the first year they made them.

On the train I called 303 to order a taxi. About 20 minutes before I was due to arrive at Palatine, I got the notification text that a taxi — number 567 — had been dispatched. About five minutes before arrival, I got the callout phone call. While I was about to enter the amount of time I wanted him to wait, I received another callout phone call from 303. As it was a redundant call, I pressed “Ignore” on the phone’s screen, and finished the other call, requesting the taxi to wait five minutes.

The train arrived on time, and I walked out to taxi number 567. As I approached, the driver asked me if I was Tony. I answered him and got in. Then he told me that he waited, just in case, because he had gotten a cancellation notice! FUCK! What is it about me that, whenever I use 303 Taxi Service’s fantastic automated dispatch system, I always get fucked...or nearly so, in this particular case? So, after having a very calm, brief argument with the driver about the rate number (he was charging rate 2, I thought it was rate 1 from Palatine to Hoffman Estates; he changed it to the cheaper rate 1), he drove me home.

Being so far behind in my schedule, I began packing with the full resignation that, despite working through the night and having been thus far awake since, I would get no time to take a nap. I called Saad (303 Taxi number 530) and asked him if he could pick me up at 5:30 to take me to the airport. He said that it would be no problem.

It was a problem. At 5:30 he didn’t show. Patient as I am, I waited, and used the time to move myself outside to wait. As I got to the deck outside the “rear” door of the apartment building — at 5:40 — my phone rang; it was Saad.

He had taken a fare to the airport and was now stuck somewhere in traffic that was not moving. He said that he would make it, and that everything would be okay.

At 6:00 I called Saad back. He apologized and said that he had not moved at all from the place he was when he had called me 20 minutes earlier! AT ALL! I had thought in the earlier call that he was exaggerating when he said the traffic was “not moving,” but he wasn’t. I was a little pissed off that he had not called me again sooner when traffic still had not moved, so he said he would call one of his other friends; he said he would tell him not to charge me, and that he would pay him for my trip out of his own pocket. I was too pissed off to feel at that moment that his gesture was not necessary.

The friend he called was cab number 508, someone I’ve met before, but whose name I do not know. He showed up around 6:30, which was ten minutes past the time I was “supposed” to be at the airport (8:20pm flight). He said he would speed to the airport. And boy, did he!

Traffic was fairly light for a Friday evening, and he got me to O’Hare in about 20 minutes! I confirmed that Saad told him not to charge me for the trip, and I tried to give him a tip for taking the chances, but he refused, even telling me that I was making him feel guilty. I didn’t push it. I will insist to Saad that he let me repay him. It wasn’t his fault that he got stuck in traffic behind what was apparently a wreck involving an 18-wheeler.

Once at the airport, things finally started moving smoothly. The plane was on track to depart on time, a fact which I reported to Mark via text/e-mail.

Once in the air, and before we were even flying completely level, the flight attendants began the dinner service. I had already removed my shoes and set my feet on the bag of pillow and blanket (EXCELLENT idea!) Dinner was served and eaten, the tray was cleared, and after toying with the idea of watching a movie, I pulled my jacket over me and “reclined” my seat.