There’s nothing like a good Friday night, and I’m referring to the money.

[June 18th, 2008]

There’s nothing like a good Friday night, and I’m referring to the money. While the money can be very nice, Fridays often devolve into a desperate attempt at triage involving far too many calls from far too many drunks trying to blow off far too much steam. I occasionally find myself hoping for a non-human delivery, with the knowledge that the box won’t ask me to take it to Barracuda and then quiz me about whether I get “lots of bitches getting freaky in the backseat.”

But when the weather’s nice, and people are in good moods, and I somehow avoid landing the mean drunks, well…the job is fun. It’s maybe a secret that I’ve kept too well in this column, but driving a cab can be a complete blast. I drive around for a few hours, listen to good music, meet new people and have great conversations. Most of it is fairly mundane stuff—my fares and I rarely discuss the meaning of life. The vast majority of them are normal people trying to get home for the night.

And on this Friday there are tons of them, and they all seem to be funny, or interesting, or even good-looking and flirtatious, and after 10 minutes they’ll hand me money and I’ll be on my way. And I’m having so much fun, and am so high on the adrenaline, that I don’t even pause to reflect on how lucky I am to have a job I sometimes love.