A crazy and dangerous trip out into the boondocks
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
My second most memorable trip as an Uber driver
Oh, welcome back to Adventures of a Black Belt Stommelier. Thank you for joining us. Back in when Uber first launched, like just in the very beginning, it seemed like it would be a really cool thing to do. So I signed up to be one of their drivers in Nashville. I was actually the third driver to enroll in Nashville, Tennessee. But for a while, it actually was kind of a cool thing to do, and you could really make quite a bit of money. But that changed over time as three drivers became 8,000 drivers, so not an SMS demand for your services. And there wasn't surge pricing anymore, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But anyway, it was something I did for a while. I actually did it a lot for a while, as I was trying to reinvent my life at that point. And there are a lot of crazy stories. I've shared one of them, kind of a really heartwarming short story. But this is a crazy story. One night late, like, I don't know, 11 o'clock at night, I picked this guy up at a bar in Midtown Nashville, and he wasn't overly intoxicated. He died. I think he probably had a couple of drinks. But anyway, this is back in the time when you actually had to ask them where they were going and enter it in whatever GPS you were using manually in order to get directions to where they were going. So I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to white planes. And I said, do you know, I'll take you to white planes, but do you have enough credit on your credit card for me to drive that far? He said, what do you mean? It's just outside of Nashville. I said, no, white planes is outside of New York City. That'll be a lot of money because you'll have to pay me driving in both directions. So you know, it'll be, you know, thousands. I don't know how much, but it'll get a lot of money. And so we had all many argument and eventually we settled that it was white, white's Creek and he was going to then he gave me the address, the street address and the closest matching street addresses in Montreal, Canada. So then we figured that out and he gave me the correct address and we headed toward white's Creek. We drove about, I don't know, 35 or 40 minutes. The last 10 minutes was on country roads with no street lights way out in the country north of Nashville. And then eventually I turned left onto this dirt road, which in retrospect I shouldn't have done. I should have just let him out there. But anyway, I turned left on this dirt road and went about a half mile up into the woods across a very rickety bridge that wasn't completely convinced would hold my car and arrived at this farmhouse really kind of falling down around itself farmhouse out in the woods. There was a bonfire in the front yard. There were about a half dozen guys standing around the bonfire drinking. What I assume was moonshine because they were drinking out of mason jars. But when we pulled in and he started to open the door, a pack of about 12 pit bulls attacked my car, two of them were up on the hood of the car, the rest of them were barking, growling, snarling, trying to get through the windows at us. I mean, we were inside the car, but it was pretty scary. This idiot started to get out of the car. What would have happened if he'd opened the door? But anyway, I reached across him and pulled the door shut and locked the door so he couldn't take it out. I said, "You're not going to get out of the car until those dark dogs are under control," and because they will come in this car and tear a spark and he said, "Well, my friend wouldn't let his dogs hurt us." I said, "Where's your friend to talk so not to nobody's controlling those dogs?" Well, eventually somebody came out and did at least the dogs and he started to get out and I said, "You know, let me give you my phone number because I don't. This doesn't seem like something that's going to turn out well and you're not going to be able to get anybody to come out here or Uber's not going to come out here and pick you up. You know, if you need to leave, I just don't feel good about leaving you here." So let me give you my phone number. So I wrote my phone number down and gave it to him and ended the trip and headed back to Nashville, hoping I'd get some kind of trip way out of the country. But I was really headed to all of this into the night for me. I was about four minutes away from that house when he called me and said, "Would you please come back and get me?" So I turned around and went back and picked him up. Again the dogs attacked my car, eventually whoever the guy would, owner of the house or the other dogs, whatever at least the dogs and this guy came out and got in my car. He said, "Would you please take me home?" I said, "I think it's a really good idea for you to take you home, but I'll take you home if you'll be honest with me about what's going on out here. Why are you here?" He said, "Well, where's I want you to come back and get me?" He said, "These dogs are running loose in the house. They didn't feel safe going to sleep because the dogs are wild. There's no doors. They're just running loose in the house and it didn't seem safe." I said, "Well, that's why I gave you my phone number. I figured something like that was going to happen." He said, "Well, what do you think, Sam?" I said, "I assume this is a meth lab where it is and what it is. People bring a moonshine at three o'clock in the morning." He said, "Well, you're right." I said, "Are you a meth user or meth dealer?" He said, "Well, I'm a meth user but I'm an engineer on Cirque du Soleil and when I'm traveling with Cirque du Soleil, I sell meth on the road." He said, "Well, more power to you, but let's head home." It was about six-minute drive until I was active with... It was far enough out in the corner country that it was about a six-minute drive before I was active with Uber again. It was about an hour drive to his house out in Hermitage, Tennessee, Southeast and Nashville. I dropped him off. It was probably finally, I don't know, close to three o'clock in the morning when I dropped him off. I was smart enough at that point to log off of Uber and head home because I had been up a long time driving and I was really tired and really wasn't safe. As it turns out, because I actually made a lot of money driving this idiot out in the country that it came out in the country and taking it home, still probably shouldn't have done it. So, that's the story of my second most memorable Uber trip. I will say this, if you use Uber, be nice to the people that drive for them to treat their cars appropriately, treat them appropriately. It is not a fun thing to do for a living, because some people are really, really awful to you, and I don't know how much money you make now, but at the end of my time with Uber, I was averaging about $15 an hour, and by the time I paid for gasoline insurance and wearing it on my car, I was making nothing, and I stopped doing it. Even that night, I had to take my car to a body shop and have the scratches from the dogs buffed out of my car, which would force Uber to charge him for, but still, it was in inconvenience. But I just say, guys driving, many women driving a Uber for Uber, they're probably doing it because there's nothing else for them to do, and they deserve to be treated with kindness and courteuses and respect, and their cars deserve to be treated appropriately. So, if you use it very often, please keep that in mind. They don't have to become your best friend during the trip, but they deserve to be treated respectfully. Thanks for tuning in to Adventures of the Blythe Valsome A. I appreciate every single one of you. Have a great day. [BLANK_AUDIO]