So... I was supposed to be interviewed on Garrard Mcclendon's show last night. I was really excited for it. I made sure I had an hour of travel time to get there because I didn't want to be late. Even though the traffic on the major street by my house was really busy, I caught a cab quickly and headed downtown to pick up my publicist. I was so excited that I barely noticed the driver was taking the long way to get downtown. The REALLY long way.
We all know that the practice of cab drivers milking meters is not uncommon. However, the cab driver I had last night took that practice to a level that I have never seen before. If I wasn't in a rush, I would have gotten his cab info and snitched to his superiors. It was such a stressful experience. You're gonna think I'm exaggerating when I relay this story to you. I assure you, I'm not. I'm posting my tweets, Facebook updates, and my followers' responses to show you how bad it was.
On my way to my interview with Garrard, I had to pick up my publicist Briahna. She accompanies me to all on my interviews in Chicago and even sits in on my phone interviews to make sure I'm saying all the stuff that needs to be said and insure that I'm getting the proper time and type of coverage. The cab driver was going in a direction I thought was out of the way, so I said to him "Excuse me, since we're going this way, lets just go to Washington and State. You don't think we'll run into traffic going this way, though?" No response. I said, "Excuse me, driver? Sir? I'd like to just go to Washington and State." Still, he didn't respond. At this point I realized he was talking on the phone with an earpiece. I spoke louder and said "Excuse me." Then, he quietly repeated "Washington and State." Like he'd heard me all along and just refused to answer me. I was annoyed at this point, but I didn't wanna let it affect my mood. When Briahna got into the car, he was no longer on the phone call so I figured if I gave him specific directions, it would be fine. I was wrong.
We gave him the address to the WGN building and directed him to get onto Lakeshore Drive. The WGN building is far North, near Lane Tech High School, and we thought that Lakeshore would be faster than taking side streets. However, we ran into a bit of traffic near Navy Pier. Briahna asked him "Do you think we need to get off Lakeshore Drive, or do you think traffic will lighten up?" He didn't respond. I repeated her question louder, but again, no response. Her and I looked at each other and gave one another the "What the hell is wrong with this dude" face. Briahna leaned forward to the open space in the divider, just in case he couldn't hear us. She said "Maybe we need to get off at the next exit." Again, no response. She started knocking on the divider, right behind his head and he began saying "Ohhh! What! What?" I said "We've been giving you directions and you aren't responding. Do we have a problem here?" He said "Am I not taking you the right way?" I replied "No, we're trying to ask you a question and you're not responding. Do we have a problem here? What's the issue?" He said "I didn't know that you were talking to me." WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????? We were furious. There was no radio playing, there was no loud traffic noise. How could he not hear us clearly? And when we said "excuse me sir" he had to know that we weren't talking to one another. We directed him to get off near Addison and continued on down Lakeshore Drive.
Soon we came to the Belmont stop, where he got into a long, slow line of cars that were trying to exit at Belmont. Briahna said "Hey, this isn't near Addison." This time he heard us. How miraculous! He replied "There is no exit at Addison. Irving Park is closer." So Briahna said "Well lets go to Irving Park if its closer." Why did we even have to say that at all? WHY? My publicist and I were in the backseat of that cab fuming. We were already 5 minutes late.
So we exited at Irving Park and we were headed back to Addison. Instead of taking Irving park to another major street, he decided to take side streets. With a whole bunch of stop signs. He was weaving through streets like it was summer and he was just out bending blocks with his homies. After a few minutes, Briahna said "No! Stay straight. Just stay straight on this street, no more turns." We proceeded down that street and, of course, it ran into Addisison. He turned left and we headed West. At this point we were only about 12 blocks away from WGN. But we were already 15 minutes late.
A few minutes later, we got a call from the producer of the show asking about our expected time of arrival. We told him we were near Racine, and he informed us that we were close and he was sending somebody to the entrance to recieve us. Thats when I noticed that the guy was driving at about 14 miles per hour. The speed limit was 20. Briahna asked him to drive faster. He didn't. Then the speed limit went up to 25. He was driving at 15 miles per hour. Briahna asked him again to drive faster. He didn't. We were both literally sitting on the edge of our seats, Briahna watching the road and me watching his speed. At this point, I was 20 minutes late.
Then we got to a point where we realized we'd driven too far down. I looked at the street sign and I said "We're at 3900 North. We went to far." I repeated the address to him and he said "Ohhh! You wanted 2500 North?" WHAAAAATTTTT THAA FUCCCCKKKKK?!? We were pissed. He turned down another street in an attempt to turn around. Briahna took over all navigational duties. I was 30 minutes late. It was over. I was outdone.
We finally pulled up to the WGN building, 3 minutes after the show was already over. Briahna paid him and we rushed inside. We didn't want the WGN producers to come out and see us arguing with a crazy cab driver about why we shouldn't pay him, we were too late to deal with it. So Briahna paid him. By fucking us over, he'd just earned $40.
Honestly, I don't know what more I could have done to be on time. I left home an hour and 15 minutes prior to the time I had to arrive in hopes of getting there EARLY! Fortunately, Garrard and the CLTV staff understood the situation, and asked me to come back next week. (We were told that the look on our faces was so sad and pitiful that they knew we weren't lying. LOL!) My publicist and I were warmly received, and we even hung out for a while and got a brief tour of the WGN building. I'm lucky they were that amicable and compassionate. They could've told us "Hey, we invited you to do the show and you missed it. It was unprofessional and we never wanna see you again." And if they would have said that, there would have been nothing we could do. Short of hijacking the cab driver's car, we couldn't do anything to change the situation. At one point I was even looking for a place to get out and catch another cab, but we were in an area where catching a cab was gonna be hell. Everything worked out well in the end, but I'm still pissed at that cab driver. I'm a strong believer in karma, so I hope that $40 was worth it. And as for me, I learned a valuable lesson last night. I learned that its time for me to buy a car.
