Male passenger A: My friend here puked in a taxi last night.
Male passenger B: Yeah! The driver made me pay $100.
Male passenger A: How much do you charge if we throw up on your bike?
Note: I thought about this later and concluded that the taxi driver was more than justified. If it happened to me -- and I'm thinking that sooner or later it's bound to -- I believe that I would definitely be entitled to compensation (though whether I would have the guts to demand it is another question.) On a good night being forced to head back to the shop to wash down the bike could cost me $50 or $60 in lost fares. For an auto taxi there's also the expense of cleaning upholstery of course.
Drunk girl staggers across the street in front of me, holding up her hand for me to stop. Her eyes swimming into focus, she sees my female passengers and addresses them:
"All men suck! Even the gay ones."
Note: My passengers seemed to think that this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. When I safely delivered them to their destination, one of them said, "Wow, we found a man who doesn't suck! And he's not even gay."
Obese transvestite to me: What are you doing after you get off work?
Me: Going home to my beautiful wife.
Obese transvestite: Can I come?
Drunk female passenger to me: Can I touch your ass?
Her slightly soberer (and very embarrassed) date: No, you can't touch his ass!
Me to fortune teller on the street: How's it going?
Fortune teller: Terrible. I haven't had a single customer all day! I'm waiting and hoping for just one so I can get enough money for beer and cigarettes and go home.
Me: Sorry to hear you're having such a bad day. But you must have seen it coming, right?
Note: I know, that was a real cheap shot. I just couldn't resist.
Me to female passenger: I'm blogging about my job. So if you say something interesting, you might see yourself quoted online.
Female passenger: I was told once that my vagina has a hood.
Me to male passenger (from Mississippi if I remember right): I'm blogging about my job. So if you say something interesting, you might see yourself quoted online.
Male passenger: I shot a deer last week.
Showing posts with label Vieux Carre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vieux Carre. Show all posts
Monday, December 5, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Perfecting the 3-second sales pitch
Night and day
Today was better than yesterday but still painfully slow. I mentioned in yesterday's post that it's much easier to make good money at night. There are certainly more tourists out and about in the Quarter after dark; but I'm starting to wonder whether there isn't another factor at work beyond sheer numbers. I've noticed that the people that I approach act differently in the daytime than they do at night.
Day or night, the vast majority of them decline my offer of a ride, of course. But they don't decline it in the same way. After sundown, if I say to someone, "Would you like a ride?", he's likely to look at me with a big smile and say, "No thanks. We're good!"; whereas, in the daytime, he'll probably look away, scowl, and shake his head no. What's up with that?
At least a smile
Today was better than yesterday but still painfully slow. I mentioned in yesterday's post that it's much easier to make good money at night. There are certainly more tourists out and about in the Quarter after dark; but I'm starting to wonder whether there isn't another factor at work beyond sheer numbers. I've noticed that the people that I approach act differently in the daytime than they do at night.
Day or night, the vast majority of them decline my offer of a ride, of course. But they don't decline it in the same way. After sundown, if I say to someone, "Would you like a ride?", he's likely to look at me with a big smile and say, "No thanks. We're good!"; whereas, in the daytime, he'll probably look away, scowl, and shake his head no. What's up with that?
At least a smile
Challenging days like these give me more opportunity to perfect my 3-second sales pitch. I'm constantly experimenting with endless variations on a basic theme:
"Need a ride?"
"Would you care for a ride?"
"Wanna ride?"
"Would you like a lift?"
"Care for a lift?"
"Who's ready to ride?"
Getting people on the bike is the goal of course, but failing that I hope to at least get them to smile. Sometimes the border between being funny and obnoxious is pretty thin. Here are some the things I might say:
"Take a trip on my magic chariot!"
To the male half of a couple: "What kind of a gentleman are you making a lovely lady like that walk?"
To someone who looks overweight and tired: "Ready to get off your feet for a bit?"
To a parent with a child: "I'll bet the little fellow there would like a ride!" (Kids always want to ride. Sometimes I'll address the kid directly, and the kid will say, "Yes!" In these cases I don't get very many smiles from the parents. They look at me with spitting cobra eyes and say, "No thank you!" in such a way that you know the "thank you" wasn't at all sincere before turning their attention to comforting the bitterly disappointed tot.)
To girls in stilettos: "Aren't you ready to get off those heels?" (All joking aside, alcohol, high heels, and the broken pavement of the French Quarter streets are a dangerous combination. I see girls stumbling and falling all the time. I played ambulance driver last week to a girl who had twisted her ankle badly. She was celebrating her 24th birthday, poor thing.)
To someone sitting on a bench: "Hey, you could be resting and moving at the same time!"
To people emerging from the convention center when I know that there's a teachers conference going on: "We've got discounts for teachers today!" (We generally let people pay whatever they want for anything under 20 minutes, so the discount is whatever they want it to be.)
One of my biggest challenges is that I can only take two passengers or three at the most. Packs of four or more tourists seem a lot more common than couples. Here's a common scenario:
Me to a group of six tourists: "Anybody ready for a ride?"
One of the six (laughing): "Can you take all of us?"
Me: "I can take the two tiredest!"
This rarely fails to get a smile.
My first night on the job a prostitute called out to me as I rode by: "Hey baby, where you going?" I guess she was working on her 3-second sales pitch too.
"Need a ride?"
"Would you care for a ride?"
"Wanna ride?"
"Would you like a lift?"
"Care for a lift?"
"Who's ready to ride?"
Getting people on the bike is the goal of course, but failing that I hope to at least get them to smile. Sometimes the border between being funny and obnoxious is pretty thin. Here are some the things I might say:
"Take a trip on my magic chariot!"
To the male half of a couple: "What kind of a gentleman are you making a lovely lady like that walk?"
To someone who looks overweight and tired: "Ready to get off your feet for a bit?"
To a parent with a child: "I'll bet the little fellow there would like a ride!" (Kids always want to ride. Sometimes I'll address the kid directly, and the kid will say, "Yes!" In these cases I don't get very many smiles from the parents. They look at me with spitting cobra eyes and say, "No thank you!" in such a way that you know the "thank you" wasn't at all sincere before turning their attention to comforting the bitterly disappointed tot.)
To girls in stilettos: "Aren't you ready to get off those heels?" (All joking aside, alcohol, high heels, and the broken pavement of the French Quarter streets are a dangerous combination. I see girls stumbling and falling all the time. I played ambulance driver last week to a girl who had twisted her ankle badly. She was celebrating her 24th birthday, poor thing.)
To someone sitting on a bench: "Hey, you could be resting and moving at the same time!"
To people emerging from the convention center when I know that there's a teachers conference going on: "We've got discounts for teachers today!" (We generally let people pay whatever they want for anything under 20 minutes, so the discount is whatever they want it to be.)
One of my biggest challenges is that I can only take two passengers or three at the most. Packs of four or more tourists seem a lot more common than couples. Here's a common scenario:
Me to a group of six tourists: "Anybody ready for a ride?"
One of the six (laughing): "Can you take all of us?"
Me: "I can take the two tiredest!"
This rarely fails to get a smile.
My first night on the job a prostitute called out to me as I rode by: "Hey baby, where you going?" I guess she was working on her 3-second sales pitch too.
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