Why do I have to get involved in something like this?

I'm not a social worker. I don't work in a hospital. I'm not a cop. Getting involved in some woman losing her child shouldn't be part of my job. Unfortunately, it has been part of my job, more than once.

I pulled up in front of a really sleazy dive at Union Corners, to pick up somebody going to Hilldale. The woman going to Hilldale was really drunk, and she had a little girl with her. The kid was 5 perhaps. There was also another woman with her who wanted to go first to a liquer store near by, and then to her apartment which was also close by. In my mind, the second woman was the worst kind of predator, but many people would dismiss what she did as minor.

Someone, probably the bar tender, had given the really drunk woman enough money to pay for a cab home. The second woman, took the money from the really drunk woman and bought beer and a ride to her own place with it, leaving the really drunk woman with the little kid about 2 bucks, when she got out of the cab. I don't recall how it came up, but after the predator got out, the subject of money came up, and I found out that the really drunk woman in the cab no longer had the cash to pay for the ride. She was a happy drunk. One of those people with an innocent drunken smile, and a mostly nice disposition, inspite of being too drunk to walk more than 50 feet at a time.

I don't like getting beat out of a ride for any reason, and I'm not a charity. I told her I wasn't going to kick her out of the cab, but I fully intended to give her a piece of my mind. She told me to shut up, she didn't have to listen to my crap. "Yes lady, you do have to listen to my crap, you don't have the money to pay for the ride, so you will listen to my crap."

Drunks don't usually change their mind when it comes to criticism. Even a sweet drunk will turn ugly if they don't want to hear something, and you insist on telling that something anyway. She started getting nasty. I told her that if she wanted to get nasty, I'd kick her out of the cab. She told me that she'd get as nasty as it took to shut me up. What was I telling her? I was telling her she was an unfit mother. I finally put her and the child out of the cab at the corner of First and Johnson. She sat down on the curb, and the little girl tried to take care of her. I had no choice, I had to call the cops. She went to Detox, I'm not sure what the cops did with the little girl.

Why didn't I just shut up? I'm supposed to silently smile as I give a free ride to a woman who is too drunk to take care of herself, and was too drunk to keep the fat pig who was on the bar stool next to her from stealing her money? Why didn't she shut up? She was too drunk to know any better? Still, why do I have to get involved in this kind of thing? Simple, I'm a cab driver.