If you’re like me, when you hear the term tools of the trade, you’re probably thinking of the people you deal with everyday. If painters have paintbrushes, soldiers have guns and rock stars have guitars… What tools are we known for?
Since we don’t really do anything, we have no use for traditional tools. However, in order to survive and remain competitive we do have two things… a corporate card and car service.
Seeing that the corporate card typically gets all the glory, I wanted to take two minutes to salute the car service drivers. Here’s to that unfortunate little army of broken English Asian drivers who are responsible for getting our irresponsible ass’s home at night. Whatever these guys make, it’s not enough. What a fucked up job. Who cares if he can’t speak English. By the time you spill into the back seat of his town car you can’t fucking speak English either.
Think about it. Some arrogant alcoholic that you’ve been waiting on for three hours, who reeks of whiskey, stale urine and cheap perfume stumbles into your car, can barely speak and then has the audacity to ridicule you for not being able to pronounce his name. These guys have got the patience of saints and all they want to know is your address so they can program their GPS in order to get you home and the fuck out of their car so they can get move on to the next asshole.
Last year was a car ride my driver won’t soon forget. This was payback for all the drivers who passed my exit, never showed up and made me look even more incompetent than I usually do in front of my clients.
It was a few Thursdays ago and I was working off 3 hours sleep from the night before. Just before the close, one of my good clients reminded me he was guest bartending that night on behalf of some charity. Fuck. I totally forgot. And to make matters worse it was a miserably rainy day and all I wanted to do was go home and sleep off the damage from the night before. But that’s not how it works. As long as clients feel the need to sit on the board of some bullshit charity, we must continue to support them.
I decided to pull the old get there early, show my face and get out when nobody was looking trick. The function didn’t start till 5:30 so that gave me an hour to pound a few cocktails with a buddy at the dive bar next to my office. Since we had to go all the way downtown, it was pouring rain and I was leaving soon anyway… I called the car service. Fuck it, he can wait.
When Jackie Chan’s mutant brother finally showed up, I explained that we had one stop to make before heading home to Long Island and gave him the address for the bar. One stop – that’s funny. Even with the best of intentions, one stop in the city that never sleeps, with your own driver and a corporate card. That’s like saying I’ll have one potato chip.
There’s a strange dynamic between little Asian car drivers and drunken Wall Street asshole passengers. For reasons I can’t explain… even though he’s getting paid and probably doesn’t mind waiting… Brokers feel the need to lie to them. Even if you know you’re out for the duration, it’s common practice to “one more stop” him to death rather than just tell him he’s still going to be with you 8 hours from now while you run into your house, take a quick shower and round trip it. Or when you’re entertaining and before you exit the car to walk into a strip club, you tell the driver your going to be a half hour tops and wink at your buddy. You know there’s no fucking way your spending less that two hours (and $4K) in there, so why lie to the little guy? I don’t know either. It’s just the way it is.
Anyway, back to my story. Our first stop landed us right on target. The party was better than I expected, I knew more people than I expected (you always do when you want to leave early) and the drinks were going down like water. Instead of sneaking out the back door like originally planed, I was carried out the front door (5 hours later). I made the rookie mistake of believing my own shit. I actually thought I was leaving early – so naturally I was pounding drinks (why go home sober). I was feeling good and now I had two degenerate drunken buddies with me who game for just about anything EXECPT going home.
A couple stops later and before I knew it, it was 2:30 in the morning and raining buckets. We were on the Long Island Expressway and my head was spinning. It wouldn’t stop. I tried opening the window, laying down, then I tried tilting my head back but it only made matters worse. That last shot of Petron was a very bad idea. I was going to be sick. I tried thinking of other things but the puke burp was too big to swallow. I was trying to fight it but I losing fast. I told the driver I was going to throw up. He quickly switched his signal on and made his way across the expressway to the shoulder.
I couldn’t hold it. In a panic I grabbed my umbrella (the only chance for saving my pride). I pulled it open just a little like an airsickness bag and began yakking into it. While the putrid stench began to fill the car, the driver had pulled over to the side of the road, exited the vehicle in the pouring rain and raced around to open my door. Fearing for the interior of his Lincoln, he swung my car door. At this point the dam was broken and I needed to get every last drop of that tequila and those half digested Buffalo wings out my system. When he ripped the door open the first thing I did was toss that nasty puke filled umbrella as far away from the car as possible (in my current condition that turned out to be an impressive 10 inches). Too drunk to exit the car I held onto the strap and leaned my head out the door where I continued to launch my projectile vomit.
But then… just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse…. Out the corner of my eye I saw the driver reaching for the umbrella. Oh no! What was he doing? Leave it me to get Mr. Fucking goodie two-shoes the driver. What the fuck was he doing? Since I couldn’t speak (due the steady stream of puke shooting from the hole in my face) I was unable to stop him. In an effort to do the right thing and show compassion for his pathetic passenger, this guy picked up the umbrella and failing to notice the sewage dripping down his sleeve, opened it order to shield us both from the rain. It was Pearl Harbor all over again. What a fucking shit show. Fortunately for me, none of it got me. But that poor bastard, he had my rancid 150 proof puke in his hair, inside his ear and all over his shoulder. It was a fucking drunken disaster.
Once he got done throwing up and despite the rain, he rolled down every window and drove me home. Not a single word was spoken. Fuck him. Who does that anyway? If some dudes puking – get the fuck away from him. Considerate jerk off. I’m not the Emperor of China and you’re not my imperial guard.
Clearly this wasn’t one of my finer moments, but that is part of our world.
Shit happens,
Dopey
Side Note: Since it would be a waste not to take advantage of their jumpy nature, another fun thing to do is sneak up on them and scare them. After a few hours of hanging around late night waiting for you, these guys typically like to recline their seats all the way back and catch up on sleep. Most brokers will creep over to their window and smack the glass as loud as can and watch as they jump up in terror, “Lets Go! – You Ready?” … Well, it amuses me anyway.
