A not so good night ... X 2 (If you're squeamish, I wouldn't advise this one)

Spent Friday night hoppin' all night long, I started at about 9:30p and we already had 15 calls waiting. It didn't get any better from then on.

Angry people because they had to wait. Been drinking, whatever. But we had a whole lotta people just wandering around downtown, or trying to get downtown. It's a 3 day weekend, we had a coupla huge concerts in town (Bob Seger, Rock Star Supernova, Bob Weir) as well as the Hot Rod Show at the Conv Center and Tuesday is Fat Tuesday. We obviously don't need a reason to drink in Ptld.

Anyway, all that aside. I was heading out to Gresham on Powell from Milwaukie at about 4:30a with an older gent that had to make his dialysis. We're tooling along at a fair clip when we get to the point where Powell isn't so populated and the street lights are further apart and BAM! I hit a deer. Full on. It was just standing there perpindicular to the traffic flow in the middle of the road. It's dark and rainy. The poor thing. He bounced off the front of my car and slid end over for about 20 feet. Then he got right back up and hobbled back up the dirt berm next to the road.

Customer and I were both fine, there wasn't anyone else around. After some reassurances to the cust's condition I called base and asked them what I was supposed to do. The customer was kinda freakin' out 'cuz he HAD to get to his dialysis on time. I backed the car up about 25 feet, then drove it forward about 15. It was fine at a slow speed, a little wobbly. There was no one else on that side of town so they told me to get him to his appt (only about a mile) and they would send another car out to check out my car.

this is the part that's really nasty

I started to drive forward and had something dragging under my front wheel (ya know how when you're at the grocery store and the cart gets a rock or a can of tuna under the wheel? Just like that) so I backed up enough that I could see what it was. I assumed it was part of my car, well it turned out to be the deer's FOOT!! Oh. My. Gawd. I started bawling. Just freakin' out. The poor customer. :o) I've never hit an animal in my life and it tore me up 'cuz I tell ya, I like animals more than I like most people.

I finally got myself under control enough to get going again and got the customer to his appt. After I dropped him and was waiting for the other cab to show up I called the police. Told them what happened, started bawling again. The lady was really nice about me losin' it, but there wasn't anything they could do. According to her "... if it wandered off on it's own then we assume it's going to go heal somewhere." Bastards.

After about 1.5 hrs we got the tow truck there and got my car towed downtown. I had to go get ua'd (company policy). I was riding w/the other driver back to town, down the same road that I hit the deer on and we saw it laying on the opposite side of the road, dead. I called the p.d. back, they said NOW they would come and get it. Bastards.

At least it was out of it's misery. Which is more than I can say for myself. :o\ Or the car. The entire front clip is going to have to be replaced. I dunno about the wobble in the front end.

So then Saturday when I headed off to work at about 9p I get there and they are supposed to have back up taxi's that we can use if something happens to ours. They only had 2 left but we couldn't find them anywhere. There was another cab driver there talking to the lot lizard that's been hitting on me since I started working there. He pulls me to the side and tells me that I can use his car. He's a day driver that doesn't have a night driver. "Just don't wreck my car, heh."

Yeah, well, I made it almost 100 miles and the damned transmission went out. Had that puppy towed into town from Hillsboro. Had a nice chat with the tow truck driver on the way back too. Told him to be sure and leave plenty of room when he parked it by my car in case I decided to drive tonight (sunday) I might wanna add another to the collection.

Gawd. I love being a cab driver. *sigh*