After a long auld slog through the night I decided that I’d had enough and made my way to home sweet home for a well deserved glass or two of brandy, followed by a slip into a coma-like sleep.
But it wasn’t to be, not yet anyway. Being a taxi I find it very difficult to pass people waving at me so when I spotted this fella on Taylor’s Hill, rocking back and forth, concentrating hard to keep himselft upright, I stopped. I thought he was heading in or around my general area but I thought wrong.

Once he’d finally managed to locate the door handle he tumbles into the car, belches, farts and then turns to me to give the oh so important directions, which of course, I had to first decipher

“Allllllright mate? Bally-Bally- brrrit pleeeze, ef ya don’t mind?” he blurts out while he searches desperately for the money he once had a dozen or so pints ago.
Shit! I thought, not only is he going the opposite direction but he probably doesn’t even have the f***ing cash to pay. Still, it’s my own fault for stopping for him in the first place, so I start up the meter, take a sharp u-turn which can be a bit hairy on this twisty road where cars just come full speed at you from nowhere.
Now, the one thing that really gets me annoyed at this time of night is when you get a git like this and they try to strike up a conversation, if you can call it that. Why in the world would this guy want to make things harder for himself, considering the fact that mental ability at this point in time is slim to none but God loves a trier, or so they say.
“I’m Annndeee, pleazed to meet ye. Whatz your name? Howz your nite been?” he slurs at me, eyes closed in the difficult act of constructing sentences, willing the words to come out.
Stuck at a traffic lights for what seemed like an eternal length of time Andy extends his slightly slimy looking paw. What can I do, ignore him and stir up all manner of problems? No, I shake his hand, quickly wiping off whatever was clinging to my once clean hand.

Successfully accomplishing human contact, Andy nods his head rhythmically like that Churchill dog and tries desperately to keep the chit chat, or lack of, going

“Are ye making a few pound tonight? It must be tough?”
“It’s alright,” I reply, trying to keep my response as short as possible in case he launches in to a tangent.
“Just trying to make con-con-con-ver-sation. Ye can tell me to shut up ef ye want,” he says, obviously finding difficulty with such a long word.
God what I wouldn’t give to be able to tell him to shut up but, from experience, I’ve found that the same a**holes who offer the chance to terminate the alcohol fuelled gibberish are the same ones who take the most offence and sometimes, this can turn nasty so better to just put up with it and hope that they just nod off.