"The fly in the ointment"

meaning "a small but irritating flaw that spoils the whole". I'm overall really happy in my new place of work, it is just that some aspects of its antiquated, rinky-dink manner of functioning irk me no end, but I should look at the bottom line: I make more money here. I am somewhat antiquated myself, but CorCab should really get with the technology of digital dispatch, because putting calls out over the radio creates a lot of friction, especially because their radio traffic is more anarchic than at any of the previous cab companies I have worked for. Radio should be controlled by the dispatcher and the drivers should stick to accepting calls, or asking relevant questions about their calls. There's this particular dispatcher, an elderly lady who has a very short fuse, and who has the busiest shift because she's pals with the owner; she gets stressed out when it's very busy, and there are continuous yelling matches between her and some of the more argumentative drivers, those who are easily outraged by her faults and shortcomings. Also some drivers are in love with the sound of their own voice and are forever expounding their opinions over the radio, regardless of how germane they might be. Everybody knows everybody else's business, because we have to announce that we have picked up the passenger that was given us by dispatch, and to say where we are taking them. It sours your mood if you have been getting a string of short fares and another driver seems to be getting all the long trips. So drivers are envious of each other, and we don't take into account the times when our own fool selves have had a run of good luck. Like desperate Las Vegas gamblers we want to get lucky ALL the time. Yet at the end of the week, we all have generally done pretty well, so all the bickering and aggravation on the c.b. radio has been for naught.

The owner of CorCab has a very civilized, polite manner about her, in a Lutheran sort of way, but she surely must be aware that she has two Cerberuses working in the office; the accountant and the head dispatcher.  The former ( I forget her name... Doris? Doreena? ) hounds you to hell if you are but a minute late in paying your lease. The latter, a certain Ronnie, is a pathological accuser. Blame, blame, blame. Blame you for this, blame you for that, blame you for something you never even heard about. Because he is in charge of the maintenance of the vehicles, and the company does not have their own mechanic, his job is to relegate on the poor driver the responsibility of the vehicle's upkeep... thirty-three years driving a cab this month, and I have never had to deal with the yearly taxicab inspections conducted by the municipal taxicab authority. This has always been the responsibility of the taxicab company. The ten-year old jalopies with a quarter million miles on the clock that we drive are bound to be breaking down often. Now, I am mechanically challenged. Checking the tires and the fluids is the limit of my ability. I cannot be blamed for a malfunctioning heater core. But he blamed me for the very thing the other day. Drivers I have spoken with share the same complaint, This Ronnie guy is insidiously relentless with his blaming, like a sword hanging over your head. Alternator conks out, and why did YOU let it happen? This qualifies as downright psychological abuse, Qué no?

I've met some of the drivers. We congregate at the taxi stand across the street from Hotel del Colorado. This is a smoke-free town but some of us surreptitiously indulge. I roll my own tobacco, so if cops should stop by I can easily dispose of the evidence. The drivers I best get along with are Danny, a 30-something year old Puerto Rican ( he looks like some cheeky monkey always bouncing around ) who is married to a girl from Tijuana. They have two daughters. The other is a Polish guy about my age or a little older ( looks like some skinny bird, a stork maybe )  called Alexy, who is not very forthcoming with his biography, but who I gather is retired from a previous job and is augmenting his income and keeping busy driving a taxicab. Then there is Biff.

Biff used to be a tuna-boat captain until the fishing company went bust. He's been driving a cab for five years. A tireless worker, he must be one of the top earners. His wife, who waits tables at Jerry's Café, kicked him out of the house so she can conduct love affairs with the cooks and the bus boys from the restaurant. She kept their teenage sons. Biff is a houseguest at his brother's, but his brother's wife doesn't like him and he has long since worn out his welcome, but can't afford his own place because he's still making payments on the house he used to share with his wife. Or because of bad money management, debts, I don't know.

Biff is big and burly, dresses always in black shorts and black t-shirt and sports an impressive biblical beard of prophet proportions. A Captain Ahab type who probably hums sea shanties in his dreamtime. He drinks a lot, for somebody with diabetes. He told me he drank seventeen Stella Artois the other Sunday. Biff cut his foot on a sharp stone and it's been weeks and the wound has not healed yet. He was very helpful to me when I first started, offering advice and directions. Biff is fun to talk to, but all the same he's a competitive and somewhat dishonest fellow driver, always taking any slight edge, any slight advantage that he can, sometimes stepping on the toes of other drivers. In fact most of the drivers are greedy, selfish little pigs. The only gentlemen that I can see in the bunch are Danny from Puerto Rico, and Alexy from Poland. They'll say, "after you, sir". Well, they'll say that to ME, because they can sense that I'm somehow disconnected from the prevalent dog-eat-dog competition.

But let me tell you about this Miami-Cuban woman in my cab! she ignored both her companion, a burly white guy from Colorado; I'd say in his mid-forties, and my humble self, because she was on the phone with a friend the whole time, and usually people on the phone irritate me, but her conversation although not meant for us, was riveting: she was describing a get-together at the Hotel del Colorado, with the families of both the future  groom, and the bride-to-be, of a wedding fast approaching. This woman was to me some sort of star. Not so much what she was saying, but how she said it. She would speak fluent English interspersed with Cuban-Spanish asides which my ears found captivating and exotic, and I wanted to listen to her talk on the phone all night. But alas, we soon arrived at the U.S. Grant Hotel and I dropped them off. As her slim figure all in black scurried inside still on the phone, the guy said to me, as he paid me: " Yep. Cubans. Cubans and weddings".

The guy I share the cab with, he works the day shift, keeps putting these tin cans of cherry-scented car deodorant under the driver's seat, and their cloying perfume gets in my sinuses and makes me cough. I told him before, I said, I had to throw your cherry perfume out because it was bothering me. Well, he put in another one and hid it good but I still found it. I told the boss lady I cannot abide by this fellow any longer but she said we all have to get along as a team. I said I am more a lone wolf than a team player. Had a cab all to myself 18 years and it's impossible for me to put up with other people's idiosyncrasies. I don't want the guy to change his ways, I just want him gone. Put him in another cab where he can indulge his cherry scent fixation to his heart's content.