We decided to take an Uber to San Antonio. It would keep us from having to look for parking and we could actually have a glass of something fun with lunch. Also, our adult daughters always get terribly concerned when we take long trips, so they were strongly hinting that taking an Uber is a very good idea.
The trouble started when I tried to book the trip through my phone.
I tried chat support. “We can’t fix it and I sent your request to our better team. They will email. Bye.”
That’s okay, I can book it through Gordon’s phone. I booked the trip, I got dressed into my outside clothes, I put on make up, Uber arrives, we get in, off we go.
Midway to San Antonio, the driver starts looking very uneasy and then says,” I’m so sorry.” We are slowing down. And down. And we are on the side of the road in the grass.
We are pulled over. Our driver was speeding. In his defense, everyone was speeding. I-35 is almost always clogged with traffic so when it is clear, Texas drivers go “Wheeee!” and then 85 mph becomes the new normal.
A highway patrolman comes to the window.
“Was I speeding?”
“You and everyone else. I’m giving warnings today.”
Getting a warning took almost 10 minutes. Then we pull back into the speeding traffic with a bit of a jump as we go from the grass to the pavement.
We arrive to San Antonio. The Uber driver drops us off a block past the house. Not his fault, he got confused. (We tipped the driver well, because he clearly had a hard trip.) We are also confused. It’s not the best part of San Antonio. The neighborhood is clearly being gentrified, so you have modern, nice house next to a dilapidated dark ruin that belongs in some horror movie.
I text our friend, “Please come out so we can find you.”
We hoof it for a bit and find our friend. Yay!
I had booked the Chart House in the Tower of the Americas. It was the closest nice restaurant that would take reservations and had good reviews. So we are walking to the Tower, which is about half a mile away, and it starts raining. There is lightning, there is thunder, and things are about to get very wet. We are speed walking to the tower and two seconds after we make it in, the sky breaks open and all the water comes out. It’s a deluge.
We get into the restaurant and it’s lovely. It’s one of those rotating tower deals, so we can see the whole San Antonio. The last time we were in a rotating tower restaurant, our then editor, Erika Tsang, took us out to eat during a convention and we told her that White Hot would be late. That was an uncomfortable conversation.
But this conversation was awesome. We had Reata Chardonnay, Gordon had a beer, and for some reason everyone decided to order fish and chips. The food was good, the wine was excellent, the company was the best of all. We had a very good time.
The rain finally stopped and we walked back through the puddles to drop our friend off and get another uber. This time it was a Tesla. We got into it, and Gordon texted our daughters.
It went like this. I’m in blue.
The Tesla, indeed, broke. We are not sure what the problem was. It was charged, but the driver couldn’t get up to speed and he said it was acting odd. So, we barely got out of San Antonio when he informed us that he didn’t feel safe and that’s how we ended up at the unfamiliar HEB waiting for the second ride. Our fair is supposed to be refunded.
Our third Uber driver was a disturbed person who shared a lot of his paranoid views with us. He did get us to the house in one piece, and I couldn’t get out of that Uber fast enough.
Sometimes I wonder if I am in a sitcom and I just don’t know it. Hehehe.
Seeing our friend was amazing. We had such a good time, and it was worth all the Uber weirdness. And I got a funny blog post out of it, so it was a win all around.
Am I first? Last time I took uber, my garage put in the wrong city and I ended up in a bad neighborhood in a neighboring town, I then had to rebook my same uber to get home at a more expensive price!
Thanks for the Adventures with Uber! I giggled.
You know, that’s my philosophy in life as well. At least I got a funny story out of it. “Did I ever tell you about the time I got taken away from Disneyland in an ambulance?” Funny!
I’m glad you had a nice time, Uber awfulness aside.
What was that movie with Jim Carrey where his entire life was a reality show and he was the only one that didn’t know?
That or Jeanine paid off your Uber drivers.
🤣🤣🤣Lol
The Truman Show
The truman Show.
The Truman Show from 1998
The Truman Show- truly one of Carrey’s best performances.
JF
The Truman Show…
I got the exact same error message when I tried re-installing the Uber app on my phone while stuck at the tire shop — so it wasn’t just you!! So I switched to Lyft. Waited longer because there are fewer — it was also a Tesla. BIZARRO WORLD>. FYI, my route home takes me past the Pack’s north office on Chamblee Dunwoody. 🙂
I hope you reported the paranoid Uber driver – he should not be disturbing clients.
Somehow I hope this adventure works into a story. Question, if you can afford a Tesla, why are working at Uber??
That was my question.
My nephew drives for them. They offer discounted vehicle loans to their drivers. So, he probably couldn’t afford it on his own. Or else the Uber gig is his second job so he can afford to pay for the Tesla.
If the driver was told to keep his views to himself in that setting, then he should have indeed stopped airing them. Not okay to keep people hostage to proselytizing.
If he wasn’t told, then I don’t think he deserves to have his livelihood threatened over expressing some, albeit unwelcome, opinions. I mean, I hope that’s all he did?
The alarming thing to me is that he knows where they live. I guess I’d leave it alone for that reason.
I laughed all the way through the post. Luckily, my Uber and Lyft experiences haven’t been bad, but there’s always the next time!
Glad you had a nice visit with y’all’s friend.
Adventures are fun to write about, but almost never fun while they’re happening. Adventures are best when they’re over.
Well, you’ve just confirmed how you come up with some of your weirder funny plot points.
I am glad you enjoyed the tower. The elevators there have an interesting reputation so I am also glad no mishaps there. That would have been quite a story too.
That gave me a good laugh. 😂 I’m glad you guys made it home safe despite the many mishaps.
My husband and daughter call me a “boomer” bc I don’t trust the unpredictability of Uber. (Note I’m Gen X thank you very much)…recently in Hawaii- first Uber was fab. Second doused the car in some sort of cherry air scent that was way too strong and the doors said “automatic don’t touch “ which made me feel trapped.
Yesterday husband sent Uber eats to deliver pizza to teenage daughter home alone. Guy needed the pin for payment before he could /would leave. Again treated like IM the crazy one.
Glad you had a good visit!!
I refuse to contemplate Uber as an option, I don’t trust the vetting system. I’m younger than you and would rather use public transport or walk.
I am glad you had a good time and made it back safely! I hear you on living the sitcom life.
I discovered last year that Ubers are hit and miss. We got an Uber at the airport in Dallas last summer. We broke down 3 minutes later, on the way to our hotel in downtown. We waited almost 20 minutes for another Uber to pick us up. We did get refunded, but it was so hot and I was mad and sleepy. Bad combination.
Instead of the Adventures in Babysitting, you had the Adventures in Ubering (if that’s even a word. If not, oh well, so I invented it). At least you had fun with your friend even though the rain gods thought your day should be wet.
At least you made it home!
Just a thought…next time take your car. 🙂
Even taking a taxi is a bit much. Elderly supplementing their retirement. I work in healthcare and my patients look in better shape then the driver I had a month ago. Long dirty finger nails from smoking and the car smelled terrible. Then the bill came due for this ride of less than 10 miles and I wanted to choke. $40 for the smelly ride with the crypt keeper.
Uber lost my trust a long time ago. Luckily Lyft has been fine.
The third Uber driver was the icing on the cake. It was hysterical. I just laughed. 😂
Yeah, it made me curious what he said to come across as disturbed and paranoid. Couldn’t have been as harmless as being a flatearther, right? 😉
We once booked a hotel (and by we, I mean me) that had great reviews and was at a discounted price. I’m pretty sure we were about to be robbed and our car stolen, but at least it makes a funny story now.
My sisters use Uber and Lyft regularly but I’m the oldest and cannot get my parent’s voices out of the back of my head. “You never, EVER, get in a car with someone you don’t know unless we tell you it is okay. Not anyone else. Us, personally, tell you it is okay.”
I’m glad I’m not the only one with the “Don’t get into cars with strangers” ringing in their head. 😀
My three best paranoia wisecracks:
Even paranoids have enemies.
Just because you are paranoid doesn‘t mean they aren‘t after you…
The question is not if you are paranoid, but if you are paranoid enough…
(The latter is actually pretty good advice in today‘s computer industry.)
Glad the third driver brought you home safely without alten abduction attempts or men in black. 😉
Using Uber is a miss/hit experience (with emphasis on “miss”).
* Getting rear-ended in France. No injuries, luckily enough. We had okay language skills and hoped we didn’t have to do anything. (I didn’t want to break out Google Translate for questionable heavy lifting.)
* Creepy driver asking us how much we had to drink that evening during our ride. Nothing happened during the short ride, but still…
* Perpetually moving “find a driver” notice that never actually finds one.
You could write a book off your Uber experience LOL Had a fun time reading this at lunch time in the office
Love the “at least a funny story…” too!
“Then there was the time we climbed a live volcano by accident in Central America, and it started shaking and throwing off hot rocks just as we reached the crater?”
And your appreciation of the BDH recommended restaurant is noted with joy!
No matter what, I always enjoy your life. I’m glad it was all worth it and you had a good time with your friend. I’ve never used Uber. I may try it. 💕
Did you do the kdrama thing, and take pics of the license plate before you got in to send to someone in case you never made it home? 😂
Thanks for sharing!! Always nice when you put smiles in our day.
I still find it silly that you have so litle mas transit options. You know trains or bus. I for example don’t have a car and I don’t plan to get one.
I’ve done Uber twice and Lift once all experiences were horrible. From now on liscensed taxis for me
LYFT. didn’t spell it correctly
I’ve only Ubered once, and that was during a vacation in Napa, CA. We took an Uber back to the train station to head home. The gentleman was retired, he drove one of those cars that’s not quite an SUV. This was a very early morning drive, and he took one look at us and did a drive through for coffee. (He got a big tip, yes he did.)
It was a once in a lifetime trip. Glad to say the Uber driver was one of the best memories.
Glad you had a good time.
I took Ubers around the Ft. Myers area when I had a family event there. The longest trip got me a similarly paranoid ranting driver. I’ll just say his politics were the complete opposite of mine. My older sister said I should have threatened his tip, which made me wonder how she felt so safe being alone on a highway in a car with a driver who clearly felt safe making extremely racist comments to a total stranger.
I repeated the Uber decision for a family event in Washington, DC three years later, although that time it wasn’t exactly by choice. I never drive in Wien, because the public transportation is so good that between the price of gas*, insurance, and parking, a car is an expensive luxury. That many people partake in, such that at least the trams and subway are much faster. So I couldn’t find my US driver’s license ANYWHERE.
What I discovered is that at least the city of DC is making decisions that extremely favor Uber over residents. You can no longer call a cab — any cab company ** — unless you are a company with a business account. Ok, you CAN. It’s an average of a twenty minute wait on hold (you can also flag down a cab, which only works if you are in commercially busy areas). The first night, I left dinner before the rest of my fam, partly because I had arrived that day and was exhausted and partly because I can’t drink alcohol, and the fun was starting for the others. So I got the restaurant maitre’d to call me a cab. While I was waiting, I checked Uber so I would have an idea for cost. Restaurant to hotel: $30. Cab arrived, we got to hotel, I had a twenty, a ten, and a five in my hand. Fare? $7. SEVEN. Or $10 with tip.
On the other hand, every time I DID end up taking an Uber in DC, I got to talk to drivers who were as appalled by the gentrification as I was. I grew up in a lower middle class area that is now very upper middle class, and areas which were poor when I grew up are now sites for luxury apartments. From an historical perspective, what is happening is criminal. But from an historical perspective, so is most of history.
Still, based only on my experiences and from a purely personal perspective, I will be avoiding Uber when I can.
I’m VERY glad you guys enjoyed the Chart House, though. Go Boston!
____
*It costs almost 100€ to fill the tank on a sedan. When I first visited Wien in 2010, my now-husband and I took a long bus ride to a medieval monastery that had been the site of a battle against invading Turks, where the Viennese repelled the army***. We passed a gas station, I did the € to $ conversion and said “I don’t see much difference, gas is only a couple cents more per gallon than in the US [in DC at that time, so some of the most expensive gas in the US].” He looked at me and said, very nicely, “honey, that’s per LITER+.”
**since there’s a central dispatch all working on this same business-only system, one wonders how many actual cab companies there are.
***one of the invasions by the Turks was the basis for the story of how coffee entered Europe. When the Turks retreated, they left sacks and sacks of beans, which the Austrian aristocracy dismissed as camel fodder (because of all the invading camels — the first way you can tell this is a story). One of the mercenary generals who had been to Turkey offered to take those beans as his pay and opened the first coffee shop in Europe (how he paid his troops is the second way you can tell this is possibly not history). Also, the first coffee shop in Europe opened in Venice in 1647, 35 years before the first coffee shop in Vienna and almost 200 years after the end of the Middle Ages.
+for non-metric-users: a liter is close enough to a quart that you can use it as a rule of thumb. So the price I was thinking was per gallon was 25% of the actual price per gallon.
Ahhh Uber…can be a super useful awesome experience or super sketchy. Make sure you keep after ’em about the refund. Uber can sometimes do the ‘oops we forgot but you don’t REALLY need a refund cause you didn’t say anything though.’
We’re planning a San Antonio trip, and I thought about going to that restaurant, but my husband has a severe fear of heights. Probably not good for him.
Ahhhh….. Uber. When I was a road warrior (or air warrior) and Uber\Lyft became common, work basically forced us to use ride sharing rather than renting a car – except in special circumstances around availability and distance from the airport.
There have been some GREAT experiences – and that time I almost called the cops because I’m still 80% sure the plan was to kidnap the rider. Once I informed the driver that I wasn’t a visitor, we were heading to my home and I was very aware that he’d ignored the last 3 exits that Uber was telling him to take and that I was dialing 911 if he didn’t take the next one (and didn’t 100% follow the route from there) – he got me home safely. He was also reported immediately. I tended to not get quite as distracted on rides after that…..
That is a terrifying story! I’m so glad you were aware of your surrounding and able to save yourself!
Oh – I’ve had drivers blow through stop signs and red lights. Speed (and it to be fast enough to bug me, we’re talking a super speeder ticket). Be completely timid or over aggressive (and I’ve been in NYC cabs).
And everything from me giving advice on how to break into my industry (IT), talking to folks that were recently retired and bored and GAVE great advice, “kids” trying to break into the music industry, etc. You just never know. I will also chime in if a conversation \ talking in general are going off the rails to state I’m an introvert that needs to recharge or I need to concentrate on what I’m reading to prep for a “big meeting” – never mind it was about 80% likely to be an Ilona Andres novel LOL.
Blowing through the red lights in LA was scarier (also reported) in some respects because I knew what to do when the guy failed to heed what the app was telling him – the first exit miss – ok, maybe he prefers another route, the second and we’re now in “going way out of our way territory”. I texted hubby before I said anything and was ready to call 911 knowing we were in an area likely to get a cop FAST if needed.
I can’t imagine what they’d want with an overweight 45ish nerd – but I wasn’t taking any chances either….
Wow. Pulled over by the police, accidentally abandoned in a sketchy part of town, drenched in a storm, car trouble, then trapped in a car with “a disturbed person”— all in ONE trip to and from dinner, you couldn’t write that in fiction because it would sound too phony! LOL!
Glad everyone had a good time and is safe!
Glad your day went well and you got home OK with the Uber adventures!
We had an Uber ride to JFK in NY in the snow that got a flat tire and the driver couldn’t get the tire off ( while under an underpass only partially pulled off the road). He drove on it to an exit where we were going to try and get another Uber, but low and behold there was a tire place. Had to stand in the cold, wind, snow while they fixed it but we managed to get to the airport on time, thankfully!
This reminds me of when we were spending to the airport in the family van and had a flat tire on the highway. We running late as usual and my husband had to catch an international flight. He broke speed records changing that tire. We laugh about it now, but will never forget.
Good golly, now as I try to navigate my future with less driving, do I place my life in quasi safe stranger/drivers or in quasi safe AI vehicles? So to survive a possible abduction or possible illogical AI maneuver 🫣 A fun ongoing internal debate in my head…that I just told the world 🤨
I’m glad you and your friend had a wonderful time and a good meal.
I have never used Uber or Lyft. When leaving for the airport at 4 a.m. I prefer the reliability of a taxi over hoping the other type drivers will actually crawl out of bed. So nice to have someone else drive when I’m exhausted from a late night arrival.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Very true!
I have over two million paid miles solo driving 18 wheelers, I really, really hate being a passenger in anything. I can empathize with your feelings on Uber, and indeed real life is where the sitcoms get there stuff.
No I don’t, it is only a little over 300K paid miles, sometimes I wonder about me. Where do I come up with this stuff? I’ve been saying 2M for years when I talk about it. I seem to be thinking more clearly as I near 80, senility agrees with me.
no wait, 3-6 hundred miles a day on 300 days a year for 35 years is lowball 2 mil, so my sanity is again questionable, 2 million miles of US highways will do that to you.
25 years
Your math sounds very much like mine. Goes around in my head in all different directions as I forget or remember variables. Eventually I have to use pencil and paper.
Most of my family are avid Uber users but my mum and I stick to TFL and guess who’s on time out of all of us?
This. This why I read y’all!
BTW, I miss the tea and chats. They were fun and illuminating. So many interesting sides to already interesting characters.
Sgt Teddy? ( with interpreter)
Bug?
Leon?
Helen, Marten, Matilda (Harrison), and Diedre all together?
Too many possibilities.
When you started to describe the impending stormaggedon on the way to Chart House, I couldn’t help but think of House Ade-Afefe…but it is heartening that the get-together was satisfying even if the transportation was excessively challenging!
So glad you got home safely, albeit it somewhat less expeditiously than planned! Seeing old friends is always wonderful. I just connected with one of mine that I hadn’t seen since before Covid.
Prior to retirement, I flew around the country every couple weeks. I had to rely on Lyft to get me around. Had heard a lot of strange stories from those that used Uber so I never called them. Then I ended up somewhere that did not have a Lyft, only Uber. The driver acted like he was irritated that he had to take me to where I was going (which was a nice part of town from what I could see). It was a ride that was very long, but it seemed like forever. Was glad to get out of the car!
I bet you can’t wait till the super organised Lawn Orphans are old enough to pass their driving tests.
In Sydney, an Uber driver (moonlighting as a teacher) picked up a dodgy package from a customer outside a restaurant. She was told it was toothpaste but the guy was acting really funny so she took the package to the police and it turned out to be drugs.
The people were arrested, but not before the customer ranted and raved at her online and gave her a one star rating. Apparently, this is the touch of death for Uber drivers, but Uber refused to take down the rating or the comments.
Under Uber’s working contract the driver doesn’t have to deliver things they think might be illegal and are in fact obligated to notify the police.
The rating was there for over a week despite repeated requests from the driver to have them removed.
Don’t think I’d like to be an Uber driver.
have never used Uber or Lyft but had to hire a specialized car service for this trip that has an infant car seat. . . I’m praying they don’t forget it at 4 am and we miss our flight.
so when trapped with a disturbed person for at least an hour I imagine you don’t want to disturb them further or distract them so do you just take turns making polite noises and non committal responses the entire time?
I’m thinking Kate: “Aha”. “Aha was a good word. non-committal.”
Trying to picture how you’ll work in an Uber in Post Shift Atlanta… 😂
Or Hidden legacy … how would Connor react?