Princeton Hijinks

This place harbors weirdoes

When you drive rideshare in central New Jersey, most of your fares are going to be in Trenton or Princeton. These are very different worlds, separated by only about 15 minutes of highway driving. 

People worry about me when I drive in Trenton, due to the higher crime rates, bad roads and challenged people. But the reality is that Princeton also has whackadoodles, and while the roads are better, the rampant deer and greater chance of long rides to places I don't want to go to (cough, Newark Airport) don't make it a dramatically better choice of where to work.

Anyhoo. Two recent stories.

 Two teenaged white bros, going to a Princeton municipal golf course. I am invisible to these princes, and their phone conversation is loud... which is why I know their plan for the day. Stealing a golf cart, driving onto the course to meet up with their friends who are mid-round, and drink, I think. They don't have clubs to help them in this charade, or any past experience that this kind of thing will work. I 3-star them to make sure that I'm not a getaway driver later...

Pick up on the Princeton campus. Upper class student, talkative, engageed in high scholarship. We have a fantastic conversation for 20 minutes as I take her into downtown Trenton. It's a nice Sunday afternoon, and I'm dropping them off at City Hall... which is closed today. I ask them why, and after a sheepish few seconds, she admits that her destination is the weed shop across the street. I pivot to note that there is a closer weed shop to Princeton now, but that this seems to be a very good one as well, and it's good of her to patronize stores in neighborhoods that probably need the business more...

"Do you want me to use it?"

YOU! FORCED ME TO USE IT!

 A young passenger gets into the car and I tell them about the water and the hand sanitizer. 

They have a unique reaction and question. "Do you want me to use it?"

I shrugged it off and didn't make it awkward, dear reader. The rest of the ride passed without incident. But in retrospect? Kind of wish I had.

Possible reactions...

> Say yes in a very slow and creepy voice. Then ask if it's OK if I watch.

> Say yes, because they are then contractually obligated to tip.

> Confess that they've thwarted my scheme, and I've gotten away with it for so many years.

> Say yes, because things go badly when people try to eat it.

> Say yes, because I make my own. The critical ingredient is my dog's tears. Do you like it? DO YOU REALLY LIKE IT?

> Say I don't care, because I've lost the will to live and can't care one way or the other. Let's drive.

> Say yes, because if they don't, Daddy George Soros will be ever so angry.

> Get way too intense and say no, I *need* them to use it.

> Just start speaking in a made-up foreign language, a la Andy Kaufman in "Taxi", because their question clearly broke my brain.

> Spend the rest of the trip chanting numbers, since language has clearly failed us as a species, and it's time to just rely on something that can't produce replies like that one any more...