[Rank Dispatches, with Brother 3000]
It's not all sweetness and light and good deeds and always being the model cabbie - there have been occasions where I've let the side down. Badly. But I'll save that for next time. Following is a case of five star service in a two star world...
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The pick-up address was the Community Retirement Units at Sterling Heights & Eden Downs (a place you wouldn't wish upon your worst elderly enemy). In Reception, they told me the lady would be out in a minute. Waiting. After 10 minutes, I went back in and it turned out she'd forgotten about ordering a taxi. Finally, we got underway. It was to be a round trip of errands along Eden Downs High Street - a seedy area where the drug dealers go by the edict that heroin is the opiate of the masses. In an unprecedented act of altruism, I put the meter on hold when we parked. |
Fearing for her safety, and with a walking frame recalled by the manufacturer, I offered to physically support her for each of her tasks. Here, the Post Office, with an ashen-faced Postmistress forgetting to smile as we purchased two stamps. There, the bank, a slithering queue of track-suited trash and middle-aged middle-managers. Behind us, a polite young man with a balaclava (it was cold for this time of year). Across the road to the bakery. Pedestrian lights. We only made it to the middle, stranded like a pair of refugees.
Twenty minutes and one savoury bun later, we were back in the cab. An hour had elapsed between pick-up and drop-off. Her half-price pensioner card saw the fare adjusted to $3.45. I gave her change for the $4.00 proffered. Appraising the coins in her hand she said, "Thank you laddie, you've been so kind", as she handed over a 5 cent tip.
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