My life as a cautionary tale.
Not really, but I felt like kicking her owner out. It was a slow Saturday for Ubering -- summertime is abysmal for rideshare with all the Snowbirds having fled back north to Canada and the ASU students gone until the next semester. Unfortunately, I ended up in the crappy, rundown part of Mesa I hate …
Continue reading I Was This Close to Kicking a Cat Out of My Car
You know, I wouldn't say I have terrible luck, but it definitely trends toward being consistently on the poor side. I don't feel like the universe has it in for me, but it's definitely toying with me and being annoying. It's like that time back in 1996 when a guy I knew, who had won …
It's weird when you meet someone whose behavior is so out there they seem almost like a caricature. I met a young woman yesterday who is a real-life gold digger -- or at least who was stretching her wings and trying it out. Her name was Dallas and she was my first passenger of the …
Do you like picking people up at the airport? I've always hated it. It's usually a hassle between traffic and figuring out where to go and where to meet your arriving family member or friend, particularly if it's super busy. Around a holiday when the place is heaving with people? No, thanks. Plus, my timing …
You know how your mom always told you not to trust strangers? Yeah, I never listened either. When we were kids, she always told us to never take candy from strangers. But what about a full meal? I don't recall any words of wisdom on that subject. Though I guess there weren't many pedophiles rolling …
Not to alarm you, but I see robots. Sneakily, they're everywhere, slowly infiltrating society, showing up in houses, factories, entertainment venues, and vehicles. And I've got bad news: they might have their beady sensors on your job. I know they've already got designs on mine -- well, at least on one of them. Yes, my …
The young guy was fired up. Not at me. But at Arabs. He was Hispanic American and he let me know in no uncertain terms that he hated Arab Uber drivers. He lives in an apartment complex, and, apparently, they have canceled on him a few times when they couldn't find his apartment and he couldn't …
Continue reading Staring at Death — A Tale of Two Passengers
It was oh-dark-30 and I was on an unlit road to nowhere, heading to a town I hadn't even known existed. How the hell did this happen? About thirty minutes before, I had been summoned to the Coach House in Scottsdale at around 12:30 a.m. I'd almost turned off the Uber Driver app to head …
Continue reading A Road Less Traveled (or How I Ended up in Bum F*** Egypt)
The other night, I had an ill child in my car who probably needed surgery -- and a moral dilemma on my hands. It was Thursday night and I was doing some rideshare driving. I'd driven a party of four down to Riggs road, way the hell south of my normal area of operation, but whatever, …
Continue reading Why I Endangered a Kid in My Rideshare Ambulance
My keys were missing. Magically, mysteriously gone. The problem was, I was already driving when I realized it. I'd just left the house after 8 p.m. to do a couple of hours of Ubering and was driving down Sossaman toward the 60 when I realized they were missing. Compulsively, I had just patted my front …