Some tips hit different

 The ping comes to a laundromat (not a great sign, historically), in a weak area for rideshare (strike two) with the kind of name and rating that says previous drivers have not wanted to repeat the experience. My ratings and overall activity level aren't good enough to decline, so I grit my teeth and take it. I won't be doing this at the same rate soon, thanks to a new assignment, so there's only so much self-pity to indulge. They can't all be gems.

I get to the pick up site, and my passenger is getting help from two people that aren't joining her in the car, and she needs it -- four or five bags of laundry and a walker don't exactly mix. I put the passenger in the front seat so she doesn't have to sit with the walker in her lap, and hear the next thing I don't want to hear; a request for an extra stop at the drug store, and not the drive in. She asks for a price, and I don't give her one, which means... well, this badly paying ride is going to get worse. On a weak shift to begin with.

When a passenger needs a stop that isn't previously noted, it's a financial hit to both the platform and the driver, especially when you are already in for the bad penny of a weak ride. It also prevents the app from finding you the next ride, and limiting the time between passengers is right up there with inspiring tips and achieving bonuses in the ranks of making the return livable. (Along with, well, not taking rides from laundromats in bad neighborhoods.)

But when I'm picking up a person with a walker, haggling is just not something I'm going to do. I put her in the front seat, silently note that the roadside motel that is here final destination is a place of past pathos, and away we go.

She asks if she can get me something (no, I bring my own beverages and try to avoid fast food), which is always a bit of a sore spot. Folks, drivers are doing this for money only, and when you try to supplement with food and drinks et al, it's got an air of infantilizing. I know that's not the intention, but the vibe is what it is. After ten minutes of plowing through emails and ignoring the app's request to confirm my safety from a long stop, she gets back in the car and away we go.

As we get close to the motel, I ask if she has a room already, and she tells me she's been there for a while, so yes, and do I know of any apartments (um, no). I go to her door, unload the laundry, steady the walker and... get a handshake with random metal. It turns out to be four quarters and a double AA battery. I thank her, palm the battery to put it one of her laundry bags, and get back in the car to move the front seat back up... and find a dried out dollar bill on the seat.

There's no way that this passenger is housing secure. She also needs the dollar bill and four quarters a lot more than I do. But my charity was to not charge for the stop, and her charity was to part with two discretionary dollars. Assuming, of course, that the second dollar was intentional.

It's not my biggest tip of the day, or the smallest. 

Just the most memorable.

An Ode To My Wife

 Frequent readers of this blog might recognize "Super Pollo 2", a local restaurant with a dubious idea for a mascot (a chicken wearing a superhero cape that is serving, presumably, other chickens). I pass by this place several dozen times a week while doing the rideshare hustle, and the sign has kind of taunted me, enough to develop a back story of its rivalry with Super Pollo 1 (a half dozen blocks away), the McDonald's Land style skits ending in the death of other chickens by Our Hero, and my daydreams of staging lucha libre fights between chickens on the sidewalk in front of the place. It has created literally dozens of text chains in my family's group chat, and more eyerolls from the kids than probably anything else I've ever texted about.

What it hadn't produced, in all of that time, was a visit. Which is where my wife comes in.

She's currently taking chemo in the first few months of treating breast cancer. Which means the usual side effects, both mental and physical. She's been predictably great through all of it, proactive about what's happening, and refusing to give up the stuff she loves (harp gigs, relative fiscal solvency through part time work on top of that). But the fight is a personal one, and my hours tend to be all over the board, so last night she asked for a lunch date.

And when I suggested Super Pollo 2, she was game.

The meal was reasonable -- slow service, Chick Fil-A level quality only without the lines or grim corporate overtones. The experience was, alas, not worthy of my comedic backstory, and we were probably the only people speaking English in the place. We may or may not go back. It's just OK and my predilection is almost always towards the New, not the Known.

But the company, and the knowledge that having this experience would have been completely impossible without her? Priceless. And that goes way beyond actually walking into the place. She's my best friend, fondest audience, and has been for (checks watch) 27 years and counting.

And next week, when I come out with something sillier and stupider to amuse her? 

She'll be down with that, too.

May you all be so blessed to spend your life with someone else who gets you half as much as she does me...

When The Rider Goes Full Newhart

 I've done stand-up comedy a few times in my life. Just enough to know (a) how hard it is, (b) how I might be good at it, and (c) how I'm not going to have enough time to seriously pursue getting very good at it, and certainly don't have enough money to spend my time that way. Road not taken, and all that. But part of that experience is watching a great deal of it with a critical eye, and understanding why different practicioners succeed or fail for me.

A famous old-school stand-up routine is Bob Newhart giving you half of a telephone conversation. The conversation is ridiculous, but what makes it work is Newhart's deadpan demeanor as he listens to, and tries to correct, the other side. 

Anyhoo. Go to YouTube if you haven't seen these. Back to the story.

The pick up is in the outskirts of Princeton and happens without incident. My rider is a male, mid-20s, on the phone. Rude but common. I do the usual (confirm address, reveal amenities), and turn down my music so that his phone call doesn't compete. I've got him for 20 minutes and it's relatively lucrative. I can also hear every word of his end of the conversation...

And my man is engaged in a *passionate* debate with someone ("Bubbe"?) over the relative merits of his choices of reality television programming, and dismissive of the merits of *their* reality television programming.

Specifically, "MILF Manor."

For those of you who are unaware of what a MILF is, well, it's a Mom I'd Like to (Redacted). To each their own, and I don't care to judge or share my own proclivities. But in MILF Manor, the (inevitably younger) men are paired and scrutinized with the older women, with the hidden twist that these are the moms of... the other men.

In short, it's a car crash of cringe, and if you like to watch that sort of thing, again, to each their own.

But what got me back to the Newhart callback was the *vehemence* of the defense. "You didn't even give it a chance!" was heard, and apparently delivered without irony, or with the goal of "Let's see if I can say something into my phone that will make the driver give me some kind of reaction."

And, well, Nope.

But congratulations, my MILF Manor enthusiast, for making the blog...

Catching up on an unwanted day off

 Last winter was rough in central New Jersey, which means Pothole and Road Repair Season has been particularly long and troublesome. When these things occur, the chance of catching misery in the form of a flat tire increase, and it's now happened to your poor author three times in the last six weeks. 

Which means that instead of working on a holiday weekend when I might make a decent buck, I'm home catching up on blog-worthy moments. It's not as lucrative, but lemons, lemonade.

> Rider, on exit before Memorial Day, wishes me a happy holiday. I get it; to him, it's just a day off and maybe an invite to the cookout. If I was quicker and braver, I might have said something like, "You know it, bro! Every year we go to the ceremony, exhume the bodies and have a kegger." Or "My people go hard! Time to dig up the pets in the backyard and put on the annual puppet show!"

This may be why I'm not invited to the cookout, actually.

> My area is festooned with political signs for a candidate named Wang, which, I am sorry to inform said candidate, triggers my always-on internal 12-year-old boy who only knew that as a profane euphemism. Finally, a political candidate you can get behind! If, well, that's your thing. No judgment. Support Wang!

> I also had a recent pick up with the name of Prat, who I suspect has already heard things about this.

> Pick up at the Trenton train station for a run to an industrial site in Florence, about 20 minutes south. As we start to chat, she asks me if I want to "help", which piques my ears. It turns out that my fare is in the midst of a prank war with her guy, and has gotten on a plane to visit him without warning at his place of work. As such, she needs me to call him from the parking lot to tell him he's got a delivery. This is done to solid effect and without undue delay, so, yeah, Fare of the Month, this.

> Overheard at the end of a nightclub drop off: "Please do not tell my boyfriend I do drugs! We're getting married!" Even if I could, I wouldn't, because my sweet summer child, I would be highly surprised if he doesn't already know...

What I've Been Thinking

Random thoughts from behind the wheel from the last few months.

> Ever since the American "excursion" into Iran, gas prices have spiked and I've kind of been on alert as to what it means to the hustle. What I'm seeing so far is more aggressive panhandling. My move historically has been to give a slow "No" head shake on approach, because it's a volume business for them, and I don't want to give false hope. As you move from daylight to late night (my usual shift), the sightings lessen. 

What seems to be happening now is the desperation is rising, so you see them in more places and for longer periods of time. You also, if it's late enough, get folks walking straight in front of your car, gesticulating more wildly, and just getting more intimidating.

My car is modest, a decade old, with some light cosmetic damage from a past deer strike, and prominent rideshare platform signage. I am not now, nor have ever been, a picture of rolling consumption and affluence. That no longer matters, because the margins for everyone on the road have been cut. As always, it impacts those with the least first.

> When costs for drivers rise, fewer people do it. My car gets 45 miles per gallon, so I'm much better off than most on this, but I'm still tempted to call it a day sooner when things get slow. So I have to think that surge prices are up (my per hour gross rates are higher, my net is the same), and wait times for passengers are longer. This hasn't turned into direct hostility from passengers to my knowledge, but I still insist on starting the ride with amenities that most drivers do not offer, so maybe that experience isn't the same for others.

> If you are of a certain age, you might remembr the movie version of the Who's rock opera "Tommy", in which the central character withdraws following a childhood trauma, and does not seem to see, hear or speak. Eventually he breaks out of this and becomes a religious figure who uses his past experience with his followers, with the lyric "Put on your earphones, put on your eye shades, you know where to put the cork."

And when passengers, many of them single travelers and younger, enter my car with headphones on and a prayerful pose to their omnipresent phone, all I can think is... I need to put some corks in the seatbacks.

Passengers of the world, I get it. You've had a day, and maybe this time in the car is the only respite you're going to get. You may be catching up to things you have had to let slide for entirely too long. Life is unseemly and many drivers are not going to say things you want to hear, and part of you is actively looking forward to self-driving cars that will seem less awkward and more safe. 

But the awkwardness you are feeling from basic human interactions will not dissipate with even fewer of them, and a society where a spiraling number of people aren't supporting themselves... is going to be more awkward still. 

So. Interact with the driver. Briefly, if you like. Confirm the identity and destination. Maybe engage in a little small talk, or at the very least, apologize for your upcoming isolation. Let's all treat each other the way we'd like to be treated, instead of a nuisance to be endured. It's a better ride and world, I promise.

> Speaking of driver interactions... there's an increasing amount of survelliance happening with the platforms pushing for dash cams, and presumptive recording of the ride's audio by either the driver or passenger's phone. I've had false accusations and platform deactivations in the past, which has caused fiscal harm, so I get it.

But I can't help but think that the trade off isn't worth it. That's computing power run amok (so, higher electicity and water bills for everyone, along with climate change consequences) with a side of constant state survalliance, and it's a when, not an if, for a gross misuse of that data to occur. And that's not even my biggest problem with it.

I'm an adult. In a country where free speech is supposed to be a core human right. And when you decide to chill it by pre-emptively recording it because you have decided that I am guilty until never proven innocent by dint of my choice of hustle, I'm going to... say only sanitized things, and very few of them, because that's the world you've created.

So those amenities? Not discussed. Restaurant reviews? Nope. Tips that might save you time and money in your next ride? Not on record. Chance that your rating is going to get a star or two taken away because I don't enjoy the world you are helping to enable? (Silence.)

> Finally, this. There are advantages to society, specifically known as a "network effect", when people are more or less on the same schedule. If most people don't have the weekend off, then weekends lose their utility, because you can't plan events that will be as well-attended. If most people have common songs in their lives, we can all sing along to them at ball games. If jokes reference events that everyone has heard of, they land with more people. And so on.

And when that effect is weakened, something is lost.

I'd point out how this impact rideshare, but, well, you can just read the earlier points and connect the dots, yes?