busiest travel day?

All I see on the news is reports of this day being the busiest travel day of the year. I am optimistic on a Sunday and am able to meander on my bicycle ride to work. As soon as I get the cab, I drive straight to SFO with hopes of an immediate ride to Sacramento. I savor a beautiful sunset over the San Bruno Mountains with football on the radio. Unfortunately, the lots are full and I am directed to exit the facility. I deadhead back to the city and almost get run off Third Street by a Filipino family in a Corolla. There’s lots of holiday traffic but no fares to be found. I head into the belly of the beast and queue in front of St. Francis. After 10 minutes I get a ride with luggage….. to…. Grant plaza (4 blocks away). After I drop him off I head up California Street and get an airport ride out of the Radisson for a quick forty- two bucks. I go down below because it seems to be moving and 70 min. later get a couple returning to the Castro after a vacation in Mexico. From there I get an old gay guy who grooves on the Iraqi music being played on KUSF. I take him to the Fairmont where I get a non-tipping middle-aged couple from Tennessee going to Fisherman’s Wharf. Soon, it’s a whirl of tourists and shoppers going here and there, but nothing too big. Then I get a Gary Danko going to outer- Richmond for $25. On my return down Geary I get a bartender from Supper Club going to strip club for industry night. He tells me they have busted a few people having sex on the beds/tables. He tells me the idea for dinner in bed started in Amsterdam and then Rome and now SF and soon London. Its quiet out and take an illegal left off Hyde St. to snag another Danko much to the consternation of a fellow driver. The fare is three very attractive women who I drop off at a condo on Eddy St. I back into a driveway slowly while watching these lovely ladies enter their residence and at the last second I sense something close and narrowly miss running into a black dude chilling in his Corvette. I miss him by an inch and he seems to understand my inattention. It’s dead out and there’s not much going on and it’s cold (45 in SF). After driving empty for 40 min. I give up and have a splendid meal at Grubstake at 1 am. Satiated and two hours left on the clock, I deadhead it to SFO and there are no cabs there and a line of a hundred tired travelers waiting for a ride. I get two guys going to W hotel who don’t seem to mind listening to Grateful Dead show on radio. I drop them off in 10 minutes and with a quick forty bucks in my pocket, I blaze back to the airport and the line is still there with no other cabs in sight at two in the morning. This dweeby dude hops in and wants to go to Genentech headquarters one exit away. Frazzled by being dealt this shitty hand, I head south instead of north and have to turn around and start the meter over and get a measly twelve bucks for the fare. By the time I get back to the airport there’s a fifty cabs lined up and not a single traveler left. Bummed and resolved to ending my night, I head back to the garage to gas up and quit. Turns out, a lot of other cabbies had worst nights. East Bay Bob had the sorriest story; a snaggle toothed street sleeper hailed him down at 16th and Mission and a woman in a wheelchair wants to go to Silver but not before they get some money from some white trash folks behind a car wash. Turns out there was shit, actual fecal matter, on the wheelchair and on the lady and now on the cab and cabbie. He kicked her out at the car wash and had to wash himself and the cab, losing an hour and freaking himself out.