There comes a time in every man’s life when he gets kicked out of Gobbler’s Coors Light party, and realizes that he stands delicately poised between the horns of a dilemma: does he walk home alone through gangland, or does he take a ride with a guy who everybody assumes is sober just because he drives a taxi? Or does he sleep in Gobbler’s outhouse?
For the record, I did not sleep in the outhouse, and I took a ride with a fellow who I at least KNEW was drunk. I hate guessing games. Unfortunately, all that ride could do is drop us off at my house, with a bunch of dirty goddamned drunken hippies in tow for whom I was still somehow responsible. So we started calling cabs. In the process, I had 74 beers and learned several new things. Everybody take notes because this will be on the exam:
- I found out that I have a phone book.
- Wahoopite does not know where Elliott avenue is. I explained it.
- Yellow Cab, which is appropriately located around the corner from my house…
- … thinks it is ridiculous to send a cab to my house.
- Wahooptie called me back to explain why he couldn’t make it. He was very apologetic and spent some time explaining the absurdity of the situation that had him locked down.
- I’m still waiting for Yellow Cab. Get these hippies out of my house.
Suffice to say, taxicab services performed below average on Saturday night. But being that they’re a necessity not unlike cigarettes and alcohol, I will probably come crawling back. This time though, I will call Wahooptie first. So now that every blog reader from Yellow Cab to Wahooptie has my address and phone number, I’ll open it up to the audience: let’s have some taxicab confessions.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Tagged as: Hippies, taxi, wahooptie, yellow cab
I would rather know about your back- have you seen a Doctor yet?
There are about 4 other taxi services in town.. maybe we should do a roundup.
I think Wahooptie is gimmicky and more expensive, so unless you are riding with 4+ people, it’s not worth it.
@2 i probably agree. my point is that they were very courteous, and i felt good about using them even though they never actually showed up. now i’m confused.
I usually call access taxi and have only had one or two problems with them. Once one of their drivers completely ripped me off saying he wouldn’t drive me home for less than $15 (this was from the corner to avon st.) But it was very late and I had consumed far too many alcoholic beverages to care. I asked one of their other drivers about him later though and he said they all hated him and were trying to get him fired so I think he was just an ass. Anyway, in my experience they almost always answer the phone and show up relatively quickly and they have some drivers that are quite characters to, which I like.
I have also had trouble getting a cab from your house from both Wahooptie and Yellow. What did you do to them?
Also, I’m starting to grow a little weary of the Wahooptie. I appreciate the usually good service, but the shadiness (many of you know what I mean) is gonna get them in a lot of trouble, I’m afraid.
I have used access taxi several times and the only complaint is they don’t know how to forecast when the driver will be there. Otherwise, their service has been O.K!
i have used Access to get from downtown to my house in Greene County a couple of times, both staggeringly drunk, and while it was a bit expensive (somewhere on the order of $40-$50), they usually showed up when they said they would. one driver, however, wouldn’t take us home without a deposit, which i thought was ridiculous. two 30 year old dudes, however drunk, are not going to be running from a cab driver in a neighborhood.
in the dark. drunk. did i mention drunk?
@7. Two drunk 30 year old dudes are perfect for running from a cab driver in a neighborhood. It’s the drunk man’s exercise.
Good luck to all those who try or have tried. Cab drivers are pretty good with their lug nut wrenches or baseball bats.
/don’t ask me how I know that?
it took me an hour to get a cab after the bondage party. i called access & they laughed at me: “all our cabs are downtown, find one.” uh, ok. at the cab stand?
That’s the drunk man’s exercise? I thought it was dancing like a loony until sufficiently dizzy, and then holding onto the floor for dear life.
/been doing it wrong
If I’m in a party of 4, the Wahooptie boys make it happen.
@9 i thought the 12 oz curl was the drunk man’s exercise?
i could barely walk, much less run, away from the cab on both occasions. i maintain that the guy was just being a prick.
Wahooptie is not THAT pricey and you can TEXT them to come get you. Awesome. Also they are driven by cool guys. Access has always had the cleanest cars and nice drivers. But they can take awhile to come. Yellow cab’s taxis smell like smoke (uck). But hands down thee nicest cab driver in town is this guy who works at A to Z. His name was Chris maybe and not only did he call to let me know he was downstairs (I fell asleep) but he gave me lemon bars he had baked.
I saw a guy get dropped off by the wahooptie and the driver stopped in and had a beer. I don’t entirely trust those guys. I love the service, I just hope they are paying attention, and don’t do something stupid to put themselves outa business.
@15: As long as I’m not the one getting the DUI, it’s all good.
isn’t Wahooptie somehow connected with the lead “singer” of the Stabones?
@16 that is, until your cabbie gets the DUI and you’re stuck on the side of 29, halfway home.
Is wahooptie another version of blacksburg’s hooptie? http://www.hooptieride.com as in same company? seems like the same idea.
@15 I hate this kind of unsubstantiated crap being posted on the site and would hope Thor might remove that line. Yoru statement can’t be verified at all and I think it may border on slander.
“In law, defamation (also called vilification, slander, and libel) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressively stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image.”
Taxi companies pay insurance through the roof and no one in their right mind would do something that stupid. Wahooptie is run by friends of mine who started it from the ground up and have put a lot of love and work into getting it off the ground. They restored those cars by themselves. C’mon dude.
And yeah Wingnut, Wahooptie is owned and operated by the singer from the Stabones. He has a couple other guys working with him.
Oh snap.
@19 similar idea, aussiebound, but the blacksburg one was around back when i was there (10 years ago) and the Wahooptie just got started.
@20, cool bob, that’s what i thought i had heard (the Stabones connection). thanks!
Dear C-booby: Can you say “First Amendment, Baby”? The Gobster is free to say pretty much anything he wants to say. If he speaks falsely it might be defamation, but YOU weren’t there so YOU don’t know if his story is true or false. You are probably one of those Purple People like Thor who believes censorship is the way to deal with everything you don’t like and everyone you don’t agree with.
Please refrain from posting legal language. If do it again I might sprain an eyeball from rolling it too much. In which case I will sue you under Section 8 of the Virginia Statutes (amended 1984) etc, etc.
Well whatever. Clearly I’m not a legal dork since I quoted wikipedia. There is a clear difference between stating an opinion (which is covered by the first amendment) and making either untrue or possibly untrue statements as fact - which (to my knowledge) isn’t covered by the First Amendment. Example - “I think he’s a drunk” versus “He IS a drunk”. Clearly it’s up to the guys who run the site. If it’s defamation then Cvillain is liable for it being posted on their site - that is why they are so sensitive about it.
I know this comes up fairly often here and I dont mean to make a big deal out of it. Those guys are stand-up dudes and good friends of mine so it hit a little close to home.
Also I read Section 8 of the Virginia Statutes and am at a loss to see how that relates to my post. But then I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know what you’d sue me for - you can’t squeeze blood from a stone.
http://law.justia.com/virginia/constitution/constitution.html
Who, exactly, are you saying is a drunk?
Parlie.
Really you could be calling any one of us a drunk.
@25- OK, that’s cool. Whenever anyone (especially a not-lawyer) quotes legal language it tends to SOUND like making a big deal out of it. In the end you did the good thing: when someone said something that was critical of your friends you stood up and vouched for them.
/hugs Jay
@26- JOKE! I didn’t even know there WAS a Section 8.
Legal or not, I know what I saw.
Also if you were my roommate (and I AM still looking) you’d never need a taxi from downtown again. I’m only a jerk on the internet I promise.
It wasn’t cool for Gobbler to infer that the cab drivers at Wahooptie drink and drive but he can say what he wants. He just infered that I am a slut in the other thread if it makes you feel any better.
Gobbler didn’t infer. Gobbler implied.
/just keepin’ it real
i think everyone has implied over the last week, isn’t that about right? i can’t remember if it started with the discussion of a wheelchair ramp or that was just part of the leit motif?
Yeah, I meant implied. Doh.
i find it hard to believe that Gobbler would just come on here and make some shit like that up for no reason.
1. Gobbler saw what he saw. Don’t get mad, just remind your brahs that they will be fired for even taking 1 sip of beer, even if it’s their last fare of the night. I knew a Yellow Cab driver who took sips on the job and tried to hide it by putting his liquor in a Diet Coke can.
2. Shemannequins, you are a slut. Don’t deny it, be proud of it.
3. Shout out to my brahs at Happy Rickshaw. what what!
4. The problem with Yellow Cab is that they’ll say “someone will be there in a few minutes” whether someone will be there in 3 minutes or 30.
@40 in their defense, Grape, there is no solid definition of “a few”
/it’s not really a defense.
the defense, and I believe we’re talking specifically about libel here, is ‘the truth’
This is why we need picture evidence of EVERYTHING. I’m going to start walking around with a camera attached to my head.
That’s a good point, maybe it was his last stop of the night. I don’t know. I didn’t say he was drinking and driving, just having a drink. Who doesn’t do that? I shouldn’t throw stones at him. But I’d think with the reputation of your company, and all the legal repercussions on the line… eh, I’m over it.
Raise your hand if you know where Elliot Rd. is. Why is it so hard for the cab companies to find?
That may conflict with your “secret” identity. Instead of Thor we can call you “that crazy guy that walks around with a camera on his head”. Oh sounds fun. You should so do it.
44: there’s your problem right there… It’s Elliot AVENUE.
except with two t’s. bullshit internet grammar laws.
maybe they can’t find it, because it’s Elliott Ave. not Rd.
/double T!
oh, never mind, looks like mc’s got it under control
[…] and drink options. Not only that, but I could get as drunk as I wanted and never had to call a cab (which is apparently iffy in this town). I felt like I was part of some hip and trendy crowd that always knew what the new black was. […]
As a driver, I can tell you why taxis in this town suck.
Back in the day it was simple. You need a cab, you call a cab. Cab comes to get you, and everybody’s happy. It’s changed now. What used to be a simple system of call-a-cab has now become call-four-cab-companies and see who shows up first. You take the first cab, and the other three guys that are coming to get you get screwed.
[You realize that cabbies pay their own gas right? Cabs work on a lease system: you pay the company a certain amount for a certain amount of time to use a cab. You ( the cabbie) are responsible for your gas and any damages you may cause to the car. ]
So everybody thinks everybody who calls a cab is gonna call the other 4 cab companies. So here’s what happens: I just got a call on the radio to go pickup somebody outside of what used to be Oxo. I’m heading down from the corner, and I see somebody on the side of the road hailing me down, so I stop, it’s a sure fare…the Oxo call will probably just be gone by the time I get there anyways.
This scenario repeats itself probably hundreds of times each night…and everybody suffers because of it. The public has to wait for a cab they can’t be sure is even coming, and the cabbies go for the ’sure thing’ first.
So everybody wins when you stop calling 4 cab companies to come pick you up. Call the one you want…get to know a driver…get their personal cell number…that alone can save you tons of time waiting for Mr. NoShow, and if I’m driving and I have regulars, they get priority.
As for the other comments on here, I can’t speak to…but I would ask for confirmation before you call another company shady, and then imply that everybody thinks that way…maybe you guys didn’t know that one of the guys that drives for Wahooptie is also the booking guy for Coupe’s…he’s made his own taxi stand in the back and frequently goes in to check on his acts playing there. Did you see the guy sit down and have a beer or just that he went in a bar?
All I’m saying is there are circumstances surrounding everything. You don’t know until you ask…that’s how I found out about the guy from Wahooptie…just give everyone a bit of grace…and don’t call more than one cab company anymore.