The Clubhouse Leader For Worst Fare Of The Year

Near Asshats

Folks... I don't talk politics with passengers when it's pretty obvious that I'm not going to agree to them. I also don't have an issue with passengers who don't wear masks, because it's optional now and increasingly a minority of riders. I stil wear mine, and I keep my windows cracked, because I haven't gotten the virus yet and don't really want it. Also, my wife is high risk due to diabetes, so, well, let's just wear the mask. It's really not that hard. My body, my choice, really not an issue to the passenger.

Recently, I was trying to qualify for an Uber bonus on rides given, and the app was not cooperating at all. Nothing but long rides from a long distance away, and the shift is working about half of the effectiveness of when it's good. Some days you get the bear and such. The final indignity is a ride that's 9 minutes away, going 31 minutes east, out into Red Country, away from any kind of surge price or utility. Oh well, nothing to be done about it; I can't afford the cancel. Let's just get it over with.

My pick up is bad from the start, with delays before leaving. The passenger is an older woman, and we're waiting on a bigger guy, presumably her husband. I tell them about the amenities (hand sanitizer and water), and we're off.

I've cracked the windows, as it's in the mid'60s and beautiful outside. As we get on the highway, the guy asks me to close the windows, as he's cold. I do this (by the way, he could have closed the windows himself; I don't use the child safety controls)... and a minute later, he's asking me to turn up the air conditioning, as he's hot. 

Yeah. Wonderful. 15 minutes to go until I three star him and stop doing this for the night.

A few minutes later, they've exhausted conversation with each other and decide to come back to me, despite my absolute silence towards them (and cracked driver-side window). Not too surprisingly, my choice of wearing a mask seems to personally offend this lovely human being. After a paragraph of profanity about how something that's killed over a million Americans (and counting) is all bullshit, I respond with the thing that really should just shut anyone up.

"Sir, my wife is high risk. I wear a mask to keep her safe."

Now, my reason to wear a mask is, in all candor, NONE OF HIS GODDAMNED BUSINESS. But this reason is in fact true, and while it's not the entire reason (I also wear it so that, um, I don't get the goddamned disease myself, and I wear it to make the more educated and sane and tip-likely of my passengers to be comfortable)... it's the biggest reason. I don't know about you, but if I knew that I gave someone a disease, I'd feel bad about it. Don't want to feel bad. So I wear a mask.

This buys me about ten seconds of silence. Then the asshat asks me, sarcastically, if I *like* wearing a mask. Like he's trying to provoke a fight, or imply that I've got some kind of fetish.

It's 2am and we're in the middle of nowhere New Jersey. I know there aren't other cars out here; you'd have to be a crazy person to do rideshare in this area, at this hour. This escalates if I pull over and tell these two to get the eff out of my car.

So I grit my teeth and drive. They later ask me where I live, as if I want to share that information with them, or they just want to get more data for their Some Liberal Drove Us Home fantasy. Since it's where their pick up was, I tell them. I drive them into their specific driveway, and I can tell from their tone as I do this that they have no idea just how close they were to me just pulling over and walking away.

Oh, and because you already knew this... Trump bumper stickers on the cars in the driveway.

There's a culture war in this country, folks. 

You can try not to fight in it if you like. 

But that doesn't mean the other side won't fight you for it anyway.