I had agreed to work the 3 p.m.-3 a.m. shift, which would likely turn into the 3-9 a.m. shift due to early morning flights at the airport.
Secretly, I worried about those hours.
Wouldn’t the possibility of picking up a serial killer dramatically increase after midnight? I mean, who hears about serial killers attacking people during a lunch rush?
To be on the safe side, maybe I should suggest that I work only until dusk.
But I didn’t want my employer to know about the yellow stripe down the middle of my back.
My second issue was the weather. Rain makes the roads slick, and I can’t see well at night. I really should have told my new boss that I wanted to be a fair-weather driver.
But I didn’t want to sound like a wanna-be princess … especially since a princess of any kind would never find her fluffy self in my situation, anyway.
I also wanted to only pick up women.
I’m not really a baby, so I showed up … as the only female among a litter of Neanderthals. Back in my 30s and 40s I would have taken the challenge. But I suddenly discovered that I didn’t want to Norma Ray my way around. Those men kinda hated me and Lord knows, the feeling was mutual.
So anyway, in addition to the rain, the dark, the nasty males and the expectation to transport possible serial killers, the credit card machine and the tablet, which provided the fee and the destination of the customers, did not work.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, at 40 mph, the car shook like a wheel would fly off at any moment.
I was also yelled at a few times for not being where I was supposed to be.
And so, when I was contacted at 1 a.m. to pick up a person at the airport, I thought I was on my way to do my job.
But then whoops, my temper kicked in.
“Now what can they do to me that hasn’t already been done?” I whispered. “For heaven’s sake, I’ve been around the barn a bunch more times than I even care to remember.”
Well, instead of picking up my passengers, I drove right past the crowd of drivers … and sat on my hand to keep from using my finger (and it was not gonna be used to wave, either).
Yep, I left.
I left because I had a stress headache and my stomach was upset. My blood pressure was making my face burn. It was raining and cold and dark. And I’m a lot more tired of stress than I ever knew. I don’t take bad situations anymore the way I did before breast cancer.
I also left because I’m 55 years old. And I’m going to only do what I want to do, as often as possible.
Life is too short to drive a transportation vehicle in the rain, after dark, with the fear that I’ve got a serial killer in the back seat.
So … on to the next adventure.