CAB WARS??? Kay's Taxi in Kalamazoo!

October 13, 2009

Why am I seemingly at war with a fifty something year old lady named Karla Denise Kent???

...Karla is the owner of  Kay's Taxi in Kalamazoo and back in August, while driving a Yellow Cab, or more correctly, Leasing a cab From Mr. Fred Jones...

...Kay Attacked me with a Tire Lug Wrench in the middle of Rose Street between the Transportation Center and McDonalds...

...Fortunately for me and my skull, she wasn't able to connect and I walked away with only emotional trauma and Injuries...

...I'm afraid I'll never understand how I got on her Radar in the first place, or why she has chosen to focus all of her rage towards me???

...Up until this moment, the sum total of my involvement with her had been fairly casual and cordial...except for all of the 411 info that Brian Lipsey (Owner of Central City Transportation) had been pissing in my ear about what a nut job she was...my personal experience with her had been conflict free...

...I did have a sense though that something bad was brewing in her mind towards me as she had chased me all over the city one Saturday night a few days after I had taken delivery of my Van...

...What am I talking about Pray Tell???

...I had taken a rare night off from driving Fred's Yellow Cab, and My wife and I had Initiated/Baptized/Christened,...If you get my drift...LOL...Our new RV/Van...soon to be our first vehicle in our Limo/Taxi Fleet...After all... we may be middle aged but we have always tried to keep the flames of Passion and adventure alive in our marraige...thus the reason hopefully for the 33yrs. of marraige we have mostly enjoyed...

...Back to the story,  My wife dearly loves Egg McMuffins, and we live Downtown at the SkyRise...

...3:00AM McDonalds changes over to their breakfast menu so we decided to recharge our batteries so to speak with some Egg McMuffins...

...Enjoying our New vehicle, I drove thru the down town drive thru @ Mickey Dee's and noticed Kay's Van and a few others Parked across the street in the Taxi Stand's...

After we got our order I noticed Kay's Van in my rear view mirror and soon realized that she was actually following me or tailing me like they do in the movies...

...Now given all the info that Brian had provided me with in regards to her mental instability as well as the numerous other rumors that had been circulated by many of the other cab drivers...One being that she had threatened another Cab Driver with a hand gun in the past... I started to get a little suspicious as well as nervous about her intentions...

...I began to drive randomly just to establish whether or not she was in fact following me and I knew there was a problem when I pulled into an Apartment complex and then came back out several minutes later after I thought I had shaken her off my tail and she was standing out in the middle of the road at the Entrance/Exit hollering at me to stop and pull over...

...At that point, I had no idea what her intentions were!

...So I tried to lose her, and led her on a merry chase around the county as I drove west out Stadium to 131 south to I-94 East to Sprinkle Rd. Cork St exit, north on Sprinkle to 94 Penetrator towards downtown to Kings Hwy and she was glued to me all the way up until I turned off on Walnut and Mills St towards the Skyrise to head home...

...  She broke off the chase at that point to my relief as I was Almost to the point of calling 911 for fear of her intentions...

...I know this all sounds a little nuts, and you are probably asking the same questions that everyone else including me is asking???

...What in the hell have you done to this old woman to piss her off so much...???

...In all honesty...I am clueless!!! 

...Truth be told...Kay is the kind of woman that someone like myself has to admire...Rugged individualism, enterprising entrepeneurism and a go gettem get out of my way attitude and action plans are all values that I admire and cherish and try to exhibit in my own life...

...I had nothing but love and Respect for what I knew of her story and history up to that point until I somehow got on her bad side...

...I will admit that I was a little leary of her nutty behavioural past that Brian had done such a good job of informing me about...

...But I tend to with hold judgement about someones character based on what someone else has told me about that person and try to base my opinions soley on my own experiences and observations of their behavior...

...After all, I have suffered much in my life because of what others have said about me and false accusations from Haters and adversaries...So I refuse engage in those kind of negative behaviors and attitudes towards my fellow travelers in this life.

...I try to practice the "GOLDEN RULE" and admonitions of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount...

"...Do unto others what you would have them to do unto you!"...Treat people the way you would want to be treated!!!

...Sounds simple, huh?

...Try living by it and see what kind of opposition and adversity that will come your way...

...So the rest of the story, is that all the while, Kay is following me on that wild Goose Chase I led her on...She was on Her cell Phone, leaving Voice Mail messages on Fred Jones Phone,  as well as calling the dispatcher, Todd Jones, @ Yellow Checker Cab, accusing me of being out on the street in my new van, my personal vehicle, picking up Cab Fares illegally and that she had proof because she was right behind me following me at that very moment witnessing it personally...

...That part of the story was unbeknownst to me at that point, but could have been cleared up immediately if Todd would of just keyed up the 2way, and asked me what was going on?...

...The next day on Sunday afternoon I showed up for my regular night shift and was informed by Missy the night Dispatcher that Todd had let my cab 39 out to Lee Klingman because as far as he was concerned, I was all done at Yellow Cab...

... Because of Kay's Phone calls on Saturday night...Todd totally believed her, without even giving me the benefit of  doubt...

In essence...Todd was attempting to fire me, even though I had rarely taken a night off in the 6 or seven months that I had been leasing a Cab From His Father Fred...

...I always paid my $90.00 a day lease without fail, regardless of whether I had actually made enough from my fares or even if I had to dip into my own pocket to make up any shortfalls...

...all of that Drama on the strength of Kay's Accusations from the previous night when I led her on that merry goose chase around the county...

...Missy suggested I call Mr. Jones and inform him of what his son Todd was trying to do to me and I did just that and Fred informed me that Yellow Cab was his company and he would make the decisions on who he leased or didn't lease a car too, and he asked me to put Missy the dispatcher back on the phone and she was instructed to have Lee bring my cab back to the office so that I could start my shift per usual...She did just that!

...Needless to say, neither Todd Jones or Lee Klingman were very happy about that but a few days later Fred met me at the office and sat down in the front Passenger seat of Cab 39 next to me as I was starting my nightly shift and we had a heart to heart conversation whereby Fred assured me that He knew that I was an honest person and a man of integrity and that he appreciated the good job that I had done for Him and His company...

...He also informed me that I needed to be careful of Kay as it seemed that she had it in for me for some reason and that she was trying to start trouble for me, and to be careful because she seemed to be mentally unbalanced and a very emotional person, and he was not sure what all she was capable of but to watch my back because she may be potentially dangerous...

...He also informed me that he was aware that I would soon be one of his competitors and he offered to me some very wise advice about how I might want to conduct myself around the other drivers and to keep my plans and activities to myself as much as possible because of jealousy and envy...

...He advised me that some drivers may even try and sabotage and even block and interfere with my attempts to get my own company off the ground...

...We parted ways with Fred giving me his blessing and wishing me luck in the future...He assured me that I could call upon him at any time for advice or even any questions I might have...He even jokingly said he may need to call me from time to time for advice...

...Mr Jones continued to lease me a Cab at that point as I was not ready to open my own company quite yet as I was still waiting on my commercial insurance, D O T authority, inspections on my vehicle etc...

  ...I believe it was approximately 2 weeks later that I was attacked personally By Kay downtown and thereby confirming what Mr. Jones had warned me about in regards to her possible negative behaviour that I might expect to come my way by her hand personally...

  A lot more to come because this drama
is still unfolding as I was in court today giving testimony in the criminal case of the people vs. Karla Denise Kent for a felony assault case that has arisen as a result of her crazy behaviour on that faithful day in early august...

I will return with the rest of the story tomorrow.

Michael