Fi and I just had the weirdest experience with a cabbie. What would you have done in this situation?
We got into a cab at the cab stand near our train station. It's about a five-minute drive. We pull up in front of the house and it's a $4.25 fare. Fi hands the guy a $20 and asks for $14 back, a pretty good tip. The cabby says he doesn't have singles so I said, "Okay, well give us $15 back and I have some quarters." The cabby starts getting upset and counts out his money-- he only has $8 in cash in his cab. I end up counting out all the quarters in my purse and come up with about $3.50. He gives Fi the $20 back and takes the quarters, then counts it out and says it's not enough and gives that back to me too.
Cabbie is getting upset at this point, "It's not enough, it's not enough." I say, "So what do you want us to do? It's midnight, we have a $20, and you don't have any change." He says, "You give me the $20 and I'll go get change at the deli." The "deli" he was gesturing at was closed for the night and we sure as hell weren't letting him drive off with our money.
At this point I got out of the car because I was starting to feel like a hostage/ bargaining chip (Fi was already on the sidewalk as the guy was trying to make change). I was going to offer to take his cab # or something so we could send payment to him later, but he started yelling at us and calling us assholes the moment I got out of the car. So we just shrugged and went into the house.
I feel like we were justified. A $20 bill is extremely common and I think it's his responsibility to have enough change to handle a $20. I offered him the next best thing I had, which was pretty close to the full fare. I feel like he wanted us to just accept his $8 in change and he would just walk away with the extra money.
Anyway, now I've finished out a really long day by being called an asshole in front of my own home. Lovely.
"I'm not a rude bitch. I'm ten rude bitches in a large coat."