[E90SLAM]

Awesome thread!!!

[nmulax]

I'm thinking this has potential for "thread of the year".

[Graham M]

Ill update this post later. I used to be a Full time Limo driver, (now I just do it VERY part time to supplement my income).
Yeah I got some crazy stories from that....

the porn movie incident,
the cross dressed knifing incident,
God there were so many there is no way I can remember them all...

like I say its 10:30 here and I just finished at 12 hour workday so Im off to bed, but I'll update this later.

[in5ane_3]

Great thread, your stories are awesome.

[Desi]

The Immigrant Hotline and Racial Tensions

Working in the taxi industry you tend to be surrounded by immigrants from all over the world. In Ottawa the industry was dominated by white folks until the 80s when the East-Indians took it over near completely. Today most of the Indians have shifted over towards driving public transit buses, trucks or have gone into other professions entirely. Today I would say that it is 30% Indians, 30% Arabs, 20% Africans 15% Other and 5% white. I myself am Canadian born and raised, of Indian descent. The Indians do maintain control over the vast majority of plates still, and rent them out to just about everyone else.

Working with such a large mish-mash of people from all over the globe you tend to become really comfortable with the issue of race, and as a result there is a lot of joking around about race and hilarious situations that arise. We, jokingly, refer to each other as "immigrants" rather than "drivers"; someone shouting out "That fucking immigrant almost ran me off the road!", or comments of that nature are common and in good hearted fun.

This "Immigrant Hotline" I speak of is a concoction of several of us younger drivers. We all called up our cell provider and had our plans changed to "Unlimited" evenings and weekends as opposed to the "1000 mins" which most people have. We also all equipped ourselves with bluetooth headsets. When we all come on for the night we start a party line by conferencing in each other, and we keep the line going for the duration of the shift. Should we get a customer we hit mute on our own cell and optionally take off the headset. This is the immigrant hotline. At one point there were upwards of 10 guys on a night but that number has dwindled to 5 or so now. This line has made for some good times. The purpose of this is primarily to kill time, but also as a security measure we know each other's locations incase shit goes down. This story is a little dry on the action as well but it has it's funny bits and I'm going to be referencing the "Immigrant Hotline" quite a bit in the future action-packed stories so I thought explaining it now was necessary.


Let's meet some of the characters. We have given a lot of people anglicized nicknames as a joke, names that are nothing like their actual names, but have stuck. I've changed their names again just because I haven't asked for permission.

Jim - He is by far the funniest character on the line. He's also the oldest, he's a middle-aged Bengali immigrant that has been driving a cab for about 5-6 years. What makes him so funny is that he recognizes his accent is funny and uses it to his advantage, that and he's crazy. He was once driving down one of the scenic federal parkways in town and saw a duck, screeched his cab to a halt, used his jacket to trap the duck, killed it, stuffed it in his trunk, drove several other fares that night with a dead duck in his trunk, and went home and cooked it. He also has this catchphrase that one of the guys taught him to say whenever something good happens. That catchphrase is, inexplicably, "Welcome to Miami!" proclaimed loudly in a south-asian accent and enunciated exactly like in the Will Smith song of the same name. This has lead to many hilarious situations where we have all overheard over the hotline his proclamation of "Welcome to Miami!" when some really confused drunk gets in his cab and is going far, he took it a step to far one. He picked up a fare at the train station which was a 20-something woman who was traveling alone. They depart and we all hear over the line: Jim - "So where you coming from?" Her - "Cuba! I just moved here!" Jim - "WELCOME TO MIAMI!" Her - "Did you just call me a fucking refugee?!" The rest of us, after regaining our composure, explain to him that Miami is where Cuban refugees that sneak into the US congregate.

Alan - Another 40-something driver, he hails from India. He too knows he has a funny accent and likes to put people in uncomfortable situations with it. Someone will ask him where he's from, and without batting an eye he'll respond in his ridiculously thick Indian accent "Norway" or "Arkansas" or some other place that he's clearly not from. Some people just respond "Oh..." and others challenge him, the ones that challenge him are almost always drunk and he'll usually take himself off mute to let us all listen in on the debate. My favourite Alan story is the time he picked up an Australian tourist at the airport who, after an otherwise silent drive until that point, said "Foggy, eh?" to which Alan paused and responded "Fuck you too!" having misunderstood the tourist's observation about the weather as an insult.

The rest of us - the rest of the line is, with a few exceptions, much like myself: younger second generation guys doing this part time. We also like to mess with people for the entertainment of the ourselves and the rest of the line. My shtick is to put on a super-thick accent and gradually lose it through the conversation when dealing with people that are hammered. By far the best reaction is from the old french guys, they don't care and will call you on it: "TABARNAC! YOOHR ACCANT!" whereas drunk old women tend to look shocked but will never say anything. Younger people are lame and will mostly just be like "Dude...".

The other guys all have shticks too where they'll adopt the most absurd backstories; he tried really hard to convince a drunk dude that he was born in a remote settlement in northern Canada and raised by Polar Bears, I like to believe the guy was buying it but I think that one went a little too far-fetched. He's passed off some believable stuff though, I think my favorite was how he was a world-renowned gynecologist from "back home" but was disgraced when he fell in love with one of his clients and that it was all right because he met the love of his life: Steven. Another one of the guys pretends to be gay and hits on girl's boyfriends, although he's toned that act down lately. We've also played that Super-Troopers "Meow" game.

Next-Up: SWAT Extraction, the last few have been a little stale and "buildup" stories and you guys have been patient (for the most part) so I'll get some action going. Expect that when I get home from work, about midnight eastern time.

[Desi]

Originally Posted by Graham M

Ill update this post later. I used to be a Full time Limo driver, (now I just do it VERY part time to supplement my income).
Yeah I got some crazy stories from that....

the porn movie incident,
the cross dressed knifing incident,
God there were so many there is no way I can remember them all...

like I say its 10:30 here and I just finished at 12 hour workday so Im off to bed, but I'll update this later.

Could you do me a favour and start another thread with those? I'm actually interested in reading them but would appreciate it if I could keep this thread to myself. Plus you limo guys are crazy, with your "holier-than-thou" attitude (just kidding, we get along with the limo guys but have a bit of a rivalry).

[MCMLXXXIX]

lol nice backstory

[jrsbeamer335]

LOL at the hooker and her "small business"

immigrant hotline was good too.
cant believe he ate the duck

[Desi]

Interest seems to be dying out. Let's pick up the pace a bit.

Swat Team Extraction

This incident occurred a few short weeks ago. Every summer Ottawa is home to Bluesfest, a rather large 10-day long music festival that crosses all genres and remains a "Blues"fest in name only. 4 Stages, acts that ranged from KISS to Ludicrous and everything in between. Oh, and booze. Lots and lots of booze.

The very first night of the festival I am driving down a road that borders the site, immediately to my left is a massive outdoor show with attendance that night I believe pushing 30,000. To my right parked along the side of the road is a massive show of force by the Ottawa Police and RCMP. As a quick aside, we have 5 police forces we have to deal with locally: Ottawa Police for the city, RCMP (Mounties) for all federal property and scenic parkways, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) for Highways, National Capital Commission Park Rangers for all park areas (there are a lot) and the Gatineau Police (in the province of Quebec, Ottawa straddles the border). We have a pretty good working relationship with most of these forces, although the Gatineau and OPP guys are more often than not douches.

So back to the story at hand. I'm driving past the site and an Ottawa Police Officer steps in front of my car as I'm driving past and puts his hand up for me to stop. I'm thinking "Why the fuck am I getting pulled over?!" but oblige. He, along with another cop who is dragging some drunk kid, come up to my car. He approaches me:

Cop: Hey bud, can you take this kid to Deerfield? (A street near a local community college)
Me: I don't know bud, is he going to be okay?
Cop: I give you my guarantee, he's going to be okay... he won't puke or anything, don't worry.
Cop: Alright, that's going to be about $30. Does he have the cash on him?
Cop: (Opens the kid's wallet) Yep, here you go. If you have any trouble call the non-emergency number and say that Constable Smith put this guy in your car and they'll help you out.
Me: Alright, thanks.

So I proceed to the destination, it was a rather uneventful 15-20 minute drive. I get to the street and turn to ask the guy which house was his. Shit, buddy had just passed out. I try making some noise, jostling him, try and get him to come to. No dice. Time to bust out that non-emergency phone number.


Dispatcher: Ottawa Police, how can I help you?
Me: Uh, I'm a cab driver. Constable Smith put some drunk kid in the back of my cab at Bluesfest and I'm trying to get him home, problem is he passed out and I have no idea where to leave him.
Dispatcher: Alright, I'm dispatching the nearest unit. They will be there shortly.
Me: No rush, its not like he's going anywhere.

So a few minutes pass by. All of a sudden I hear a siren and see an unmarked Ford Excursion that is lit up like a Christmas Tree come flying around the corner and stop behind me. Before I had the chance to finish saying "What the fuck" 4 Tactical Unit cops jump out of the truck, run up to my car in some sort of formation, swing the rear door open, grab this poor kid by his collar and stand him up in front of one of the cops. I'm sitting there staring in disbelief, what the fuck? Was this kid a fucking Al Qaeda operative or something? Oh, did I mention the cops were heavily armed? Turns out the Tac guys just happened to be the closest unit and were just bored so they decided to "practice". At this point I could have left since I had already been paid but decided to stick around, this situation has comedic potential and I have nothing else to do.

So I'm standing there outside my car observing as one of the cops trys to figure out where this kid, who is visibly stunned to be suddenly staring a Tactical Unit Cop in the eyes, lives. The conversation goes something like this:

Cop: Son, where do you live?
Kid: I don't know, I just moved here for school.
Cop: You have any ID?
Kid: Uhh, I don't think so.
Cop: Do you have a phone number we can call to get your address? Can we call your mom's house?
Kid: (Trying not to cry) NOO! Please No! she doesn't know I drink!
Cop: : Son, she's either going to find out if we call her to find out where you live or when she finds out you were in the drunk tank for the night. Can we call one of your buddies? Give me one of your friends phone numbers
Kid: : Uh, don't know any numbers.
Cop: : Give me your cell phone
Kid: (Hands the cop his Wallet)
Cop: : (Looks at the wallet) Well, I'm not going to bust you for this fake ID but I suggest you hide it better. Now, cellphone.
Kid: Uhh... (as he's fumbling it starts to ring)
Cop: (answers phone) This is the Ottawa Police, I'm with your frien... (Guy's friend hangs up)
Cop: (calls back the last number) Look, I'm with the Police. I'm with your friend Sean who we can't get back to his place. Can you tell us where he lives? Otherwise we're throwing him in the drunk tank for the night.

A minute later the cop hangs up. The guy on the phone says he doesn't know where his buddy lives, but that he lives a few blocks away and to leave him on his doorstep because he won't be home for a few hours. The cops apparently agreed. One of them pulls me aside and says "Listen man, we have too much gear in our truck and can't take him, can you take him? Don't worry, we've got your back. To which I, trying not to laugh at the cop, agreed.

They shoved the kid in the back, put an armed Tactical cop in the front seat with me and followed me in their truck with the lights on. To any passerby it legitimately looked like I was running from the cops. I was kindof hoping to be carjacked at that very moment, but alas it was not meant to be. So we pull up to this guy's buddy's house and 3 cops get out and pick him up, two holding him by his arms, one with his leg and the other leg dragging on the pavement. They lay him across the front porch, ring the doorbell, run back to their truck and tear out of that parking lot.



In hindsight I kind of wish I had grabbed a card and written on the back "You are going to have one hell of a drunk story to tell tomorrow. Call me and I'll fill you in" but alas hindsight is 20/20. If anyone knows a guy named "Sean" that just started at Algonquin College in Ottawa, refer him to this thread. I doubt he remembers much of this, but probably enough to be able to confirm that it was in fact him. This would make for one hell of a "I got so drunk that I..." story.

[aut0sh0cker]

This is pretty epic I must say

[MCMLXXXIX]

hahaha wtf

[Hecticrulerz]

man I was the cops where that nice down here lol.

By the way Indian also. What kind are you?

[Bimmer Nerd]

Hahaha this thread is epic just sat out on my porch and read all the stories so far looking forward to the rest

[E91 Dude]

I lost it when I read, "Turns out the Tac guys just happened to be the closest unit and were just bored so they decided to "practice."

Bravo Desi! Looking forward to the others.

[Hecticrulerz]

Originally Posted by E91 Dude

I lost it when I read, "Turns out the Tac guys just happened to be the closest unit and were just bored so they decided to "practice."

Bravo Desi! Looking forward to the others.

U lost it like u loled?

[Razzy]

Epic.

[m3pare]

hahaha nice

[akh23456]

thats was great

[E90SLAM]

Thread of the year!

[nvez]

subscri-frkn-bed.

this is awesomed.

[E91 Dude]

Originally Posted by Hecticrulerz

U lost it like u loled?

Yes I laughed out loud, in addition to slapping my desk in a caveman-istic show of excitement.

[305e92]

Epic thread is epic