strong weekend

This has been a solid weekend - Friday night was spectacular, and tonight was fairly successful. I drove from about 3:45 pm Friday until 3:45 am Saturday, with only a quick dinner break in there, and I made a ton of money. One of those nights where everything is clicking - one fare led right to the next, I was taking efficient routes, customers enjoyed our trips so much that they called me to give them return trips, etc. Couldn't have been much better.

I thought tonight would be just as good. It's a Saturday night, which I wouldn't think would be any different than a Friday, plus all those couples who don't usually go out on weekends would be getting dinner. And if they're going into Georgetown where parking is a bitch, or planning on splurging on a bottle of wine at dinner, then they'd be taking cabs, too. Seemed like a perfect storm of fares.

The problem, though, is that every other cabbie in Arlington was thinking the same thing. And Red Top's system basically got overwhelmed with so many calls coming in. By the time we'd get to a call, we'd be late, and with the glut of cabs on the road tonight, the passengers had found another cab and didn't bother to cancel their Red Top call. As another Red Topper put it to me as we were waiting for a group of 8 to come out (they never did - they had already found other cabs), we were chasing no-shows all night. Doesn't mean it wasn't profitable, but it just wasn't as good as it should have been, considering how much demand for cabs there was tonight.

Aside from all that, there were a few heroes of the past two nights. First, the couple on Friday who honestly didn't mind when I took them to the Hirshhorn museum (7th and Independence SW) instead of the Corcoran (17th and E NW). Second, the couple tonight that didn't mind when I took them to Irish Times (near Union Station) via one of the Pentagon parking lots and then dropped them off a block away from the bar. Both those couples were understanding and sweet, and tipped nicely even though I wasted their time and ran the meter longer than it should have gone. Thanks!

Aside from that, the goats would have to be the passengers that come in and say racist things to me about other cab drivers and expect that I'll laugh at them. Boy does that get uncomfortable really quickly. There aren't too many of those, but I get a couple of them per weekend night.