The (in style) departure from the hotel
Go downstairs at 2pm, check out, exit the hotel and try to get a cab. So far so good. Spot a big van that had just offloaded a passenger, and ask the taxi driver to go to JFK. “Let’s go”, he replies, and opens the boot. Those Ford Crown Victorias may or may not have enough space for our baggage, had unsuccessfully tried to get one from JFK to the hotel when we arrived so they redirected us to a van type. So I tried to do the same here, especially now that we have four items excluding hand carry-ons. Taxi driver is from Africa, but what I don’t think of is that there were two other taxis waiting in line and he was only supposed to be leaving his passenger and leave the hotel entrance. The other two guys had priority.
Start to give him my baggage, two taxi drivers who had been waiting in line for ‘clients’ come rushing on and shout loudly at him “you should not be taking passengers from here, go away now!”. I stand still, not understanding what is going on. Bell ‘boy’ is so old, ready to fall down even if you blow your breath at him and so tired that can’t even be bothered, he’s not moving and just waiting to get his $5 bill tip from the ‘tourists’. In the meantime the taxi drivers get into a serious argument, and I make the mistake of trying to sort out the mess with them. Attacking drivers are a middle aged guy with red painted hair (urgh) who shouts and exhibits aggressive behavior, as he was first in line, and an Indian (with one of these Sikh bandage-type things round his head) who is more calm and says to me “he’s illegal, we were waiting in line and trying to get passengers”.
Red-haired (painted, as we said earlier, haha, I’m enjoying this) bends into the boot of the Ford Galaxy (or whatever that was) of the African guy and grabs my first luggage with both of his hands, trying to take it over to his car and thus ‘steal’ the clients who is obvious they are going to JFK. African taxi driver seems to have a very low IQ and tries to check-mate the red-haired guy by bringing down abruptly the open boot cover of his Ford, therefore smashing it directly and intensely on the head of the red-haired guy who was pulling my first luggage from the boot. Bang! Boot cover knocks the red-haired taxi driver straight in the head and almost knees him down. He realizes what is happening and immediately leaves my luggage, turns round to the African guy, raises both his fists in a Muhammad Ali fighting position and threatens to punch the Nairobi guy straight into the face.
“Where is Francis Ford Coppola?” I wonder (for the movie we are now shooting, here in front of a 25-star hotel…) Yea, I know you’re all laughing by now (but I wasn’t, later on, while we were driven to JFK…). Anyway, after this experience I propose to the management that the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel instead becomes part of the LHFTD chain (Leading Hotels of the NYC Fighting Taxi Drivers) (aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha). Back to our fight now, and the Ghana/Nairobi guy does not raise his fists up in order to fight back as he knows he has cheated the line. By the way, we’re still in the first round, ladies and gentlemen, official umpire is the third taxi driver, the Sikh guy, and the three panel judges are the on-the-pavement (10 feet away from the action, as usual) still-sitting bell ‘boys’ of the Helmsley hotel [aaaaaahahahahahaha].
I make my second mistake, turn round to one of the panel judges, our bell ‘boy’, just to see if he can put some order in this, but he’s barely raising his shoulders and eyebrows, his lethargic look not being disturbed to the slightest. I give up. The conflict is almost over, while in the meantime Francis Ford Coppola has notified his agent he’ll not be attending as he ‘lately refrains from directing undisciplined pupils’. Means we should be on our way in a few minutes. Ghana/ Nairobi guy leaves as he’s lost his chances, red haired guy is p***ed to the limit (perhaps even with me, as initially I didn’t think the African guy as wrong and as I also wanted to avoid the Crown Victoria thinking it won’t be able to fit our stuff) and takes all our luggage to his cab, which surprisingly fits all four in the back (yes, I’m still in America, where everything is big). Ready-to-fall-down panel judge (sorry, bell ‘boy’ I meant) takes his five buck note and we get into the cab of the red-haired guy.
He is polite, but in a ‘fake’ way. I notice it but keep my suspicions for later. He starts driving fast, changing lanes continuously as if he’s racing or as if he is in a hurry to go for lunch. I say nothing. He asks if we are Italian. I ask him his nationality, and he says he’s Hungarian. Well, well, well. I tell him I had a ‘gf’ from there, but he doesn’t seem too excited to continue conversation. Instead, he presses on. We’re not in a hurry, buddy! Slow down! Why are you causing us inconvenience and risk our health as well? Why? Can’t you have discipline and hold your temper? Ok, you got angry, but keep your bad temper outside, you’re driving a car with 62mph now…
We arrive in JFK. I am not happy. But he’ll get the tip for unloading the luggage, all four of them.
I ask him “How much is it?”
He replies : “55 dollars.”
“But it is a standard rate of 45” I say.
“There is 5.50 for the tolls (which of course I knew) and tip included”
Really? Since when tip is included at a predetermined rate straight from the beginning? Taxi drivers, what do you expect... That’s what I said earlier, you get good ones some times and bad ones others.
I give him 60 and say please give me 5 dollars change. He takes the money, puts them in his pocket and then gets out of the car, without giving me the 5 dollars change. He unloads all four pieces and then stands still ready to go.
I say to him “Please give me my 5 dollars change”.
Reluctantly he looks at me and with a small delay takes out of his left pocket a small pack of bills, handing me out five dollars.
This is why I simply dislike taxi drivers and always try to avoid using them, unless it is absolutely necessary.
Next time it’ll be a hotel car, I can tell you that.
Go downstairs at 2pm, check out, exit the hotel and try to get a cab. So far so good. Spot a big van that had just offloaded a passenger, and ask the taxi driver to go to JFK. “Let’s go”, he replies, and opens the boot. Those Ford Crown Victorias may or may not have enough space for our baggage, had unsuccessfully tried to get one from JFK to the hotel when we arrived so they redirected us to a van type. So I tried to do the same here, especially now that we have four items excluding hand carry-ons. Taxi driver is from Africa, but what I don’t think of is that there were two other taxis waiting in line and he was only supposed to be leaving his passenger and leave the hotel entrance. The other two guys had priority.
Start to give him my baggage, two taxi drivers who had been waiting in line for ‘clients’ come rushing on and shout loudly at him “you should not be taking passengers from here, go away now!”. I stand still, not understanding what is going on. Bell ‘boy’ is so old, ready to fall down even if you blow your breath at him and so tired that can’t even be bothered, he’s not moving and just waiting to get his $5 bill tip from the ‘tourists’. In the meantime the taxi drivers get into a serious argument, and I make the mistake of trying to sort out the mess with them. Attacking drivers are a middle aged guy with red painted hair (urgh) who shouts and exhibits aggressive behavior, as he was first in line, and an Indian (with one of these Sikh bandage-type things round his head) who is more calm and says to me “he’s illegal, we were waiting in line and trying to get passengers”.
Red-haired (painted, as we said earlier, haha, I’m enjoying this) bends into the boot of the Ford Galaxy (or whatever that was) of the African guy and grabs my first luggage with both of his hands, trying to take it over to his car and thus ‘steal’ the clients who is obvious they are going to JFK. African taxi driver seems to have a very low IQ and tries to check-mate the red-haired guy by bringing down abruptly the open boot cover of his Ford, therefore smashing it directly and intensely on the head of the red-haired guy who was pulling my first luggage from the boot. Bang! Boot cover knocks the red-haired taxi driver straight in the head and almost knees him down. He realizes what is happening and immediately leaves my luggage, turns round to the African guy, raises both his fists in a Muhammad Ali fighting position and threatens to punch the Nairobi guy straight into the face.
“Where is Francis Ford Coppola?” I wonder (for the movie we are now shooting, here in front of a 25-star hotel…) Yea, I know you’re all laughing by now (but I wasn’t, later on, while we were driven to JFK…). Anyway, after this experience I propose to the management that the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel instead becomes part of the LHFTD chain (Leading Hotels of the NYC Fighting Taxi Drivers) (aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahaha). Back to our fight now, and the Ghana/Nairobi guy does not raise his fists up in order to fight back as he knows he has cheated the line. By the way, we’re still in the first round, ladies and gentlemen, official umpire is the third taxi driver, the Sikh guy, and the three panel judges are the on-the-pavement (10 feet away from the action, as usual) still-sitting bell ‘boys’ of the Helmsley hotel [aaaaaahahahahahaha].
I make my second mistake, turn round to one of the panel judges, our bell ‘boy’, just to see if he can put some order in this, but he’s barely raising his shoulders and eyebrows, his lethargic look not being disturbed to the slightest. I give up. The conflict is almost over, while in the meantime Francis Ford Coppola has notified his agent he’ll not be attending as he ‘lately refrains from directing undisciplined pupils’. Means we should be on our way in a few minutes. Ghana/ Nairobi guy leaves as he’s lost his chances, red haired guy is p***ed to the limit (perhaps even with me, as initially I didn’t think the African guy as wrong and as I also wanted to avoid the Crown Victoria thinking it won’t be able to fit our stuff) and takes all our luggage to his cab, which surprisingly fits all four in the back (yes, I’m still in America, where everything is big). Ready-to-fall-down panel judge (sorry, bell ‘boy’ I meant) takes his five buck note and we get into the cab of the red-haired guy.
He is polite, but in a ‘fake’ way. I notice it but keep my suspicions for later. He starts driving fast, changing lanes continuously as if he’s racing or as if he is in a hurry to go for lunch. I say nothing. He asks if we are Italian. I ask him his nationality, and he says he’s Hungarian. Well, well, well. I tell him I had a ‘gf’ from there, but he doesn’t seem too excited to continue conversation. Instead, he presses on. We’re not in a hurry, buddy! Slow down! Why are you causing us inconvenience and risk our health as well? Why? Can’t you have discipline and hold your temper? Ok, you got angry, but keep your bad temper outside, you’re driving a car with 62mph now…
We arrive in JFK. I am not happy. But he’ll get the tip for unloading the luggage, all four of them.
I ask him “How much is it?”
He replies : “55 dollars.”
“But it is a standard rate of 45” I say.
“There is 5.50 for the tolls (which of course I knew) and tip included”
Really? Since when tip is included at a predetermined rate straight from the beginning? Taxi drivers, what do you expect... That’s what I said earlier, you get good ones some times and bad ones others.
I give him 60 and say please give me 5 dollars change. He takes the money, puts them in his pocket and then gets out of the car, without giving me the 5 dollars change. He unloads all four pieces and then stands still ready to go.
I say to him “Please give me my 5 dollars change”.
Reluctantly he looks at me and with a small delay takes out of his left pocket a small pack of bills, handing me out five dollars.
This is why I simply dislike taxi drivers and always try to avoid using them, unless it is absolutely necessary.
Next time it’ll be a hotel car, I can tell you that.
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