Taxi rides and lost drivers

Last Friday I took a cab from the Wilmington airport to the car dealership to pick up my car. As the meter kept climbing over $20, I started to worry about how far this place really was (I hadn’t thought it was that far). We finally got on the road that dealership is on, and after a few minutes the drivers says “Is the number really 2362? We’re at 5000 and the numbers are getting bigger.” I checked and it was right, so then we pulled over and called the company. When she started to explain where they were in relation to where we were, I handed the driver the phone. The driver quickly figured out where he had gone wrong, and backwards we went. I noticed the meter when we turned around, and it was took about $4 to get back to the correct turn off (so we’re now $8 too high).

We then kept going north on the correct road for quite a while, all this being backtracking our initial southward direction, although on a parallel road. When we got there he had the nerve to quote to me the price on the meter. I asked “What about the time you were going in the wrong direction?” and he said he’d take off $6. Not being one to argue when I don’t really know what I’m talking about (and not wanting to bicker over $2), I paid the fare. I even gave him a decent tip.

We had been chatting earlier, and he had been a driver in NYC/NJ area (sorry, cousin Bob, not all NY cab drivers are as good as you were). I guess he just really needs to study the map of Wilmington more 🙁