I am playing cards with some friends when one of them, a cabbie by profession, gets a phone call. In the silence of the small room, we can hear both sides.

Caller: “Interpreted call for [Rider].”

Friend: “Go ahead.”

Caller: “She needs to be driven to a few locations at 2:00 pm tomorrow.”

Friend: “I’m sorry, I can’t. I am already booked tomorrow at 2:00 pm.”

Caller: “Why not?”

There are some funny looks and quiet laughs from the rest of us.

Friend: “Because… I have other clients?”

Caller: “How about the fourteenth at 2:00 pm?”

Friend: “Okay… Wait! Tomorrow is the fourteenth!”

Some friends and I are leaving an end-of-season event for the sports club we represent at University. We’ve just piled into a taxi to take us back to a friend’s house, where we’re staying.

Since this event hosts dozens of University teams, and it’s just ended, there are a lot of almost identical-looking taxis lined up, waiting to collect their passengers.

The six of us are getting situated and we’re about to close the door, when a drunk young woman climbs into the taxi, SITS ON MY LAP, and closes the door behind her.

Friend: “Erm, [My Name], you can’t bring her back to my house!”

Everyone turns to stare at me and this person who I now realise is NOT another of our friends trying to catch a ride and is, in fact, a complete stranger.

The driver, of course, is annoyed that this girl is not seated safely, and my friends are giving me raised eyebrows, evidently thinking she’s a one-night stand in progress.

Me: “No idea who this is!” *To the girl* “Hey… I don’t think this is your taxi. Do you think you could get out? Maybe we can find the one you’re supposed to be in?”

After about ten seconds, it dawned on the girl that she was in a vehicle with people she didn’t know, and she opened the door and hopped out. I got out, too, so I could make sure she at least found someone she DID know, instead of leaving her swaying on the footpath alone.

Thankfully, the taxi behind ours had some confused-looking people waiting beside it who spotted our interloper and called her over. Satisfied she’d been returned to her friends, I got back in, CLOSED THE DOOR FIRST, and then buckled up so that we could finally be on our way.

I’m on the phone with my mom when she tells me this bizarre story that happened not even twenty-four hours ago.

My mom falls asleep on the couch with my stepdad and wakes up to the door rattling as if someone is trying to open the door. My mom gets up to see what’s going on when the door opens and in walks a clearly intoxicated lady.

Mom: “I’m sorry, but can I help you?”

Lady: *Stumbling around* “No, no, it’s fine. [Name] sent me.”

Mom: “I’m sorry, but who? Why are you in my house?”

Lady: “[Name], [Name] sent me. Don’t worry.

She continues to walk around the foyer. My mom walks outside and sees a rideshare driver in the road.

Driver: “She’s all yours now.”

Mom: “Um, no, we don’t know her.”

Driver: “But isn’t this [house number five numbers down]?”

Mom: “No this is [house number].”

She pointed to our clearly-seen house numbers above the door and pillar. The taxi driver’s face paled and he started to rush up and down the street looking for this random lady’s house for whoever sent her.

In the end, she got out of OUR house and into hers, and I died laughing, glad I wasn’t there when it happened.

I take the bus to work, normally. One morning, I get off the bus, and as I’m walking to the building, I realize that I left my work ID at home. Without it, I cannot get into my office. Because it is a long wait for the bus to go back home and it is unlikely I’ll make a return bus in a timely fashion, either, I decide to order a rideshare to go there and back.

I wait a while for the car, following along on the map. The driver keeps going around in circles on the blocks around where I am waiting without getting here. After a few minutes of this, he calls.

Driver: “I’m having trouble finding you. Where are you?”

Me: “I’m on [Street], at the corner of [Avenue], near the bus stop.

Driver: “Which one? There are two of them.”

Me: “There aren’t two of them in this neighborhood. There’s just the one here. I’m in the shopping district?”

After several more minutes, he finally picks me up.

Driver: “You were right; there was only one!”

He drives to my home, ignoring the map, but thankfully, he listens to my directions when he goes off course. I pick up my ID and we start driving back to my workplace. We make small talk on the way, and he tells me about the passengers he tends to drive.

Driver: “Yeah, I like when I take the ladies like you. They make the car smell good.”

Me: *Pauses* “Glad that hygiene thing is working out for you.”

I almost never downrate drivers, but this one got one star and a report.

I pick up four somewhat drunk men around the age of thirty in the centre of Copenhagen. After they get in the taxi, I ask where they’re going. 

Customer #1: “Just drive south along the coast. We’re getting off in four different places.”

Within a few minutes of driving, I’m asked by the computer running the meter, the GPS, and so on, where I’ll end up and when I expect to be there. Because of this and because some people do tend to fall asleep when they’re a bit drunk, I ask where the last one of them is going.

Customer #1: “I’m going to [City thirty-five km south of Copenhagen].”

Me: “Where exactly in [City]?”

Customer #1: “It’s a very small town outside [City] called [Town].”

As it happens, I grew up in that very small town and I still have family living there, my mother being one of them.

Me: “Where are we going in [Town]?”

Customer #1: “It’s a small street called [Street].”

He is going to the very same small street my mother lives on.

Me: “And which number are we going to?”

Customer #1: “It’s number seven.”

I then look at him in the rear-view mirror.

Me: “That’s the new wooden house, isn’t it?”

His lower jaw actually dropped and I could almost see him thinking something along the lines of “Rain Man.”

I didn’t tell him that I’d passed that house thirty-five kilometres away numerous times, while they were building it, when visiting my mother further down the street.