A varied day

Jackie Mason that great Jewish comedian had a great joke.
I have been to the bank and I have just found out that I have enough money to last me for the rest of my life.

No really its true.

After the applause dies down he says.

"That is unless I have to buy something"

Well that is what it is like here in the snow, they say they have plenty of salt but they have not put any on the roads,they were afraid that if they spread it they would run out.

Until today when I saw the first gritters on the move.

Today the project I have been working on over the last month comes to an end.
Provided that no one rocks the boat it will be a great success.

So at the start of my day I had to meet someone.
Backing my car out of the drive a guy waved me down going to the airport.

I told him I had to meet someone but I would bring him to the bus garage where the bus route was running from, all for no charge.
When he was in the car he told me he had been in London a few days ago and had taken a taxi from Paddington. He showed the driver the address and he brought him with £3 on the meter. He was embarrassed and gave the driver £10.
Things like this happen because you don't know where you are going.
But sometimes taxi drivers will take advantage and drive you all over the place.

My meeting did not work out so I headed off to bring in a few commuters.
The girl I picked up worked in advertising, she made advertisements.

Here is her last project.


A GREAT ADVERT?

Today its McDonalds

Then I brought an English family off to the airport.
A hot cup of char (Tea) and back into town.

I had 3 jobs to do for myself so I headed off to Philipsburgh ave.
A tap had stopped working and i had shoveled away the snow to turn off the water.
I now had a better shovel and was going to try to find the stop cock which is on the footpath. On the second or third shovel full of snow the little steel door appeared.
Yesterday I had exposed the same spot but could not see it.
So I drained down the system and took out the innards of the tap and headed off to get a new part.

And that is when one of those moments took place that will remain with me for the rest of my life.

I thought she was directing a truck which was backing out.
But when I stopped she got in and asked me to go to Amiens St. and back.

There is a very busy methadone clinic there and taxis pull up and wait and drive away all the time. Pierse St and Ballyfermott have other clinics.

So you never mention the elephant in the room, but it is there.

So we talked about the snow and the usual bullshit.

Then I waited and she came back. The Methadone used to have a very strong smell and it also had a very high sugar content.
A few years ago you could smell the addicts breath and their teeth ware black and rotten.

Now things are better.

So we headed back, down North Strand when I told her about 2 guys who were holding up taxi drivers in this area and suddenly one day they were in my car.

Her boyfriend is a taxi driver and he was robbed at syringe point.

A little bit further on she said that her nan lives there.

(I was asked to explain my expression "The elephant in the room".
It is something that is obvous, yet you should not mention it, because if you do the invisible elephant will appear and fill up the room)

I can't understand how anyone can get involved in drugs especially after having lived around here, heroin has taken 3 generations from this area.

I had broken the rule I had mentioned the elephant.

She started talking.

I was 13 when I went on drugs.

HOW THE FUCK COULD THAT HAPPEN I said.

I used to babysit for my aunt, my fathers sister, one day I went there and she was smoking Heroin.
She said

TRY SOME,

I said no

NO DRUGS ARE BAD.
She said
I AM YOUR AUNT I WOULDN'T ASK YOU TO DO SOMETHING WHICH WOULD HARM YOU.

So after a few weeks smoking heroin I was hooked, selling heroin on the streets, later I got hooked on cocaine, I stole and sold my body I did a lot of bad things.

But I never robbed a taxi driver or someone who was trying to make an honest living.

What kind of a fucker would give heroin to a 13 year old child? I said.

Mister this is what heroin does.

She told me about her immediate family who had died from drugs.

What happened to you aunt.

My father when he found out went over to her flat and kicked in the front door and milled everyone in the place with a baseball bat.
Her boyfriend was in prison at the time.
When her boyfriend came out of prison and found out about me he dragged my aunt to our place by the hair screaming and rang the doorbell.

When my mother answered he had a knife to my aunty's throat.

Take this knife and kill her, look what she has done to your family.

Her mother wouldn't do it so he stabbed his girlfriend in the neck and slashed his wrists, then he tried to go to the top balcony of the flats and jump off and kill himself, but he collapsed before he reached the top.

They both survived, the aunt is drug free now but has become an alcoholic and lives with different people as a down and out.

So journeys end had arrived €17 on the meter.

Just give me €15, God bless you and I hope Santa comes.

I hope he does come to me and to you as well.

Then I went home fixed the tap !


Compare her and her life to the guy and his wife going to the concert in the Aviva stadium last month.
He saw the €1 coin on the floor of the car and scrabbled under the seat to get it. Then even though I was the only taxi which picked them up, he left me 50 c short.

Good Karma to you all