Cinco de Mayo

So I worked the night of Cinco de Mayo. I only worked until 2am because I had to get home and take a journey to PA, but that's a different story. I picked up a few tourists travelling to hotels around the Times Square area, a few business humans from Park Ave to random residences in Midtown, and then a nice lady who apparently wanted to get in my car for 2 blocks. Hey, 3 bucks is 3 bucks.
Then this lady jumps into my car at 49th and 10th. A Black woman with a thick African accent. She says "I'm from Nigeria. Take me to union square trains." So ok, off I go. I get about 4 blocks and she says that she has no money. Ok. No problem. Get out of my car. She refuses. She says that it'll be faster for me to take her to union square then it would be for me to kick her out, so I might as well just take her there. Are you kidding me?!?
Now, let me just add this: I've taken people for free before. Not just once, but plenty of times. If they are stuck somewhere and simply tell me the deal, I say sure, no problem. It's only 5 minutes of my time. Some of the people I've taken for free actually take my information and send me 10x the amount later on. One girl who lost her bag and jacket in a club, just this past January, was crying near MSG when I pulled up to her and she told me what had happened. She lived down by Mott and Spring. It was like 10 degrees outside. I told her to hop in, I'll take you for free. No worries. So it's not like I'm some sort of money hungry greedy cabbie.
Anyway, because of the way this lady handled the situation, plus that it's only a 10 minute walk from where I picked her up, on a beautiful 62 degree night, she can go screw herself. So I repeated, "Get the fuck out of my car." To no avail. And I'm not about to physically remove a female from my cab. I can see the amateur photo in the Daily News already. So I continue to drive, but I go right through Times Square. It only takes about 2 minutes to find a cop walking the street, so I rolled down the window, gave the cop a "HEY! YO!" and he walks over. I explain the situation, so HE pulls her out of the car. My meter said $6.20. Now again, I would usually squash the $6 and continue to work. But no. Screw this lady. I demand my money, which she has none. Cops are not too happy with fare jumpers either. The cop asks if I'd sign the affidavit, to which I agree, and in seconds she's in cuffs being arrested! For $6! Now was that worth it? She picked the wrong cabbie today. I mean, why even tell me you have no money? Why don't you just get to union square and run out and right down the subway? Like I'm going to chase you for $8? Not a chance in hell. Sigh. People.
But then I picked up this nice Italian girl going to Forest Hills Queens, who was a pleasure to speak to and who gave a nice tip, even though it was a credit card, but whattaya gonna do. Picked up a LGA customer on the way back, drove some drunk humans around from SOHO and called it a night.
There was one funny moment in my night too. I was hailed by a young couple at Orchard and Stanton (or Rivington?) and when I pulled over for them it happened to be about 2 feet from the corner garbage can, and I had an empty snapple bottle than had been irritating me and needed to be thrown out, so I got out of the cab to toss it. The couple was just standing by my back door expecting me to open it! I was like, the door's open. They go OH! I thought you get out to open the door for us. LOL! I said, "You're lucky I didn't hand YOU the bottle to throw out, let alone open the door for you!" They laughed and got in. They're from Indiana. It's okay. Imagine? Cabbies getting out to open the door for customers? There'd be instant gridlock.

Anyway, all in all a decent income night and enjoyable all around. That's the important part.