Turtle

December 26, 2020 11:40 p.m.

File this one under N for "Not tonight, Satan."

I received a ride request from a house behind the QT at Gravois and Weber. There was some sort of party going on, and the wife of the person who had requested the ride was waiting out front. I pulled up, confirmed the rider's name. She got in and said her husband would be out shortly.

A few seconds later, several people walked out the front door of the house - a woman, followed by two men. The lady in my back seat absolutely freaked out on the second man out the door, who happened to be her husband.

Apparently he had insulted her, as well as the sanctity of their matrimony, by exiting the house behind another woman.

I'm still trying to understand how that one works. I've run several calculations and drawn up some diagrams and just can't figure out what set her off... But there she was, yelling and screaming at her husband from my back seat, calling him... lots of creative names... none of which are suitable for publication. While doing this, she assumed a sort of attack-turtle position on her back and began kicking at her intoxicated and remarkably composed husband through the open door with her high-heeled boots.

That's when I told her to get out, canceled the ride, and drove off.

While the amateur psychologist in me would love to know what the issue was, I do not have the patience for that kind of nonsense...

Vignettes

December 24, 2020 2:13 a.m.

Three short vignettes from my Christmas Eve-eve (that's December 23, if you didn't know.)

1. I picked up a young woman and drove her to work her midnight shift job at a 24 hour gym in south city. The ride itself was uneventful, and she was a pretty great passenger - friendly, good conversation, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary, though, as (thankfully) the majority of my rides are like this. However, as she got out of the car, she said, "thanks for the bottle of water!"

It took about three blocks for it to register that I didn't have any bottles of water for my passengers in the back seat. So I guess someone must have left a beverage back there, which she mistook as a courtesy I had extended to her.

For what it's worth, the passenger before her definitely struck me as the type of guy who would drink straight gin out of a Dasani bottle, so either it was water, and the $2 tip she left me was out of appreciation for that, or it was something else, and the $2 tip she left was out of appreciation for making her shift way more interesting.

2. I picked up a man from BAR:PM, one of a handful of increasingly popular gay bars in my neighborhood. The passenger I picked up made it clear he had gone out looking to hook up, and had no luck. He repeatedly asked if I had a wife or girlfriend... or a boyfriend... or a husband... I answered no to everything and finally had to explain that I don't judge who people are into, but I'm into women. He apologized and was quiet... and then rebooted, because he was blackout drunk, and we had to have the same conversation over again.
   
   When we got to his destination, he tried to leave his phone in the car so I'd have to come back. I made sure he took it with him.
   
   I'm flattered that I was your blackout crush of convenience, but dude, I'm not into you. AND I'm trying to work. Ugh. Men.
   
   

3. Later in the evening, I picked up a couple in Belleville. They were going to... another part of Belleville. Did you know that Belleville is huge? Well, it is. It's enormous. Anyway, about five minutes into their 15 minute trip across town, the girl started yelling at the guy because apparently he was talking to someone she didn't want him talking to, and in order to keep her - his girlfriend - from interfering, he had some other girl lock her in a bathroom for like half an hour.
   
   How they didn't break up right then and there is beyond me.
   
   Also, possibly related, the guy in question made a point of telling me that he studied jazz bass in college.

Straight

December 13, 2020 1:33 a.m.

The map below illustrates one of the most vexing rides I’ve ever had.

I received a request from an apartment complex near Lafayette Square. The passenger's friend was requesting a ride home to Fairview Heights for her.

On the way, she decided she wanted to change the destination. I told her because I was driving, she'd need to have her friend change it on her app. Her friend changed it. Apparently there was some party happening at a condo in another part of Fairview Heights.

As we pulled up to the new destination, it became apparent that Uber had routed us to a service entrance, as there was a very large, very locked gate standing in our way.

"Oh, there's another entrance," said the girl in the back seat.

"I'm not from here," I said. "Can you show me where it is?" I asked.

Simple request, right? I sure thought so.

"Go straight," she said.

So I did. We got to an intersection about half a mile up. I asked which way to go.

"Go straight," she said.

Repeat this for three miles until we're at a dead end in Caseyville, which is when I said, "straight isn't an option - see that sign that says dead end in front of us? We can go right or we can go left. Do you know where we're going?"

"Uh," she hesitated. "Go right."

You can see this on the map below. We went right on IL 157.

Again, every major intersection we came to, I asked which way to go. The GPS was still trying to take me back to that service entrance, so it wasn't aware of any other way there. My only hope was this passenger.

"Go straight."

Damn it.

By the time we got to Collinsville, I pulled over and we had ourselves a talk. A heart-to-heart if you will.

"Look," I said, holding my phone up to show her where we were, versus where she wanted to be, "we are in Collinsville. You can't just keep telling me to go straight. Is there someplace else you want me to take you, because I don't know this area, you don't seem to know it either, and the GPS keeps wanting me to go back to the same entrance with the locked gate."

Silence.

"I'm not going to drive around and run up your friend's tab all night," I said. I mean, I would have very much liked to, but That's not who I am.

"I guess you can take me home," she said, and gave me a different address, which was another 12 minutes away.

As we were driving there, she received a call from the friend who was paying for the ride.

"Where are you? I see you on my app - you're like all over the place!"

"We got confused," she said.

"Excuse me?" I interjected. "I would be quite happy to explain exactly what happened."

"Sorry," she said, "it's my fault - I'm not good with directions. The gate was locked and we - I - couldn't find the other entrance."

"Well," her friend said, "just go home then - that's fine."

"No," said the girl in the back seat. "I want to come have fun."

"But how are you going to get here?" asked the voice on the phone.

"My car is at my boyfriend's place in St. Louis," she said. "I'll just take my grandma's car. I'm not that drunk."

And by that point, we were in her driveway. I don't know what happened next. I don't care to know what happened next.

What's important is that I did not kick this girl out of my car in the middle of Washington Park at 12:30 a.m. like I really, really wanted to.