For Limo Driver, Wake-Up Call Is Worth It

Sometimes it does pay to get out of bed.

Limousine driver Santi Romo simply needed his sleep and passed on a 2:30 a.m. call from his dispatcher to drive a man from Garden Grove to Portland, Ore., last week.

So the dispatcher at Irvine-based Continental Limo called another driver, Major Cephas, who dragged himself out of bed and off to Garden Grove, where he picked up a customer wearing jeans and confessing to a fear of flying.

Even before calling Romo or Cephas, dispatcher Karen Steinmetz had picked up positive vibes from the customer over the phone.

“I had a good feeling” about him, she said.

Little did she know how good that vibe would turn out to be--at least for Cephas.

The driver set out with his eccentric passenger on the 945-mile trip, with a stop in Sacramento, a walk in the park, and a trip to a mall for a cream soda break.

With the detours, the trip took 17 1/2 hours, and the bill came to $2,216. The passenger, who said he works for a Seattle computer company and loves to travel the world, paid Cephas.

And he had a tip for the driver: $20,000.

Cephas thought it was a joke.

“It’s been 17 1/2 hours, and I’m not not really in the mood to be played with right now,” Cephas told him.

The passenger responded: “No, I’m not playing. Anybody that could put up with me deserves it.”

Cephas said his 13-year-old daughter has plenty of ideas for the money, which he wants to use as a down payment on a house.