My First Ride On Uber

Of all the gizmos and gadgets of the 21st century, nothing makes me feel like I’m living in the future as much as the Uber app. I recently took my first ride with Uber, and it may have been the most exciting day of my life.

“Look!” I said to random people passing by, waving my phone at them. “You can see the little car on the screen! Look! It even has little wheels!”

They kind of nodded and backed away from me. That’s the problem with random members of the public these days – no sense of wonder.

“It’s coming down the road!” I yelled at them. “It’s turning the corner! Any minute now it’ll be … look! There it is!”

My wife and my friends have been pestering me to try Uber for a long time now, but they gave me very strict instructions about how to behave.

“Don’t make conversation with the driver,” my friend Jane told me sternly. “That just encourages drivers to make conversation with other passengers, and I hate making conversation.”

“I won’t say a word,” I promised.

“And whatever you do, don’t tip,” she said.

“Don’t tip? Really?”

“No, the whole point is it’s a cashless experience. There’s no expectation of tipping, but if some people start tipping then we’ll have to start tipping, and then it’s ruined for all of us.”

The no-tipping thing suits me just fine, but I was so excited to see my very first Uber that I forgot all about the no-speaking rule. I jumped in and said, “Hi Omar!”

“Hi,” said Omar.

I told Omar that I was excited to be riding into the future with him. Omar didn’t seem quite so excited as I was, but maybe that’s because Omar had been doing this all day every day for a year.

“I’ll bet you’ve seen some things,” I said.

“Have I!” said Omar.

Omar told me about the couple, a man and a woman, who weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend but who were sharing a cab to a restaurant to meet their boyfriends and girlfriends. This seemed unlikely to me. Why were these two together, and why were their partners together somewhere else? Omar didn’t know, but he told me about how they kissed and rolled around in the back seat, with her saying to him, “Hurry up! We’re almost there!”

“They were going to do it right there in the back seat,” Omar told me indignantly.

“Wow,” I said, looking nervously at the seat beneath me, trying not to make too much contact with it.

Fortunately for the state of their souls, Omar told the couple that if they wanted to cheat on their partners, they had to get another Uber. He told them it was a sin and that if they didn’t cease immediately he would stop the car and make them walk the rest of the way.

“So you’re kind of like a dad on a long road trip,” I said.

“If I was their dad, I would give them a damn good hiding,” said Omar hotly. “People are very rude.”

It’s true: people swear at Omar when he refuses to drive over the speed limit, swear at him when he won’t do an illegal u-turn into traffic, swear at him because they’re drunk or late or because they think that paying someone money means you’re allowed to swear at him. He goes home after work every day and his wife has to rub his shoulders until he’s calmed down.

“That sounds pretty bad,” I said. My first Uber ride was turning out to be a bit of a downer.

“That’s not the worst,” said Omar.

The worst was when he accepted a pick-up from Sandy Bay. If you have never been to Sandy Bay, then you’re my kind of person, because Sandy Bay is a kind of creepy nudist beach in Cape Town on the way to Hout Bay. Omar drove to the parking place, but his GPS showed him that the person was somewhere on the beach, so he strode off along the sand with cellphone in hand, squinting to try and find his pick-up. Now, you might find this story improbable, but it’s the story that Omar told me and I have no reason to call him a liar.

The pick-up message told him he was meeting someone called Mavis, and up ahead was a slender, shapely lady, sitting on a towel and facing away, looking at the sea, apparently naked. Omar is a strict and moral man, but he didn’t mind admitting that he felt a certain twinge of curiosity as he drew nearer and said, “Mavis?”

“Yes,” said Mavis, and stood and turned around with a big smile.

“Was she naked?” I asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” said Omar. “But … aaaaaarrgggghhhhhh!!!!!”

He gave a shriek, as though a crab were running up his trouser leg.

“SHE WAS A MAN!” he bellowed.

Omar’s wife had to rub his shoulders extra long and hard that night.

“Did you still pick him up?” I asked, looking suspiciously at the seat again.

“Yes,” said Omar gloomily. “But I made him put on some pants.”

“Huh,” I said. “No offence, Omar, but that’s quite an unlikely story.”

“You don’t have to believe it,” said Omar frostily, “but it’s true. And I did not give him a good rating.”

Wait – what was this? What did he mean, ‘didn’t give him a good rating’? I thought passengers gave drivers a rating. No one told me about a rating for passengers.

“Oh yes,” said Omar. “We give our passengers a rating out of five stars after every journey.”

My head swam with this news.

“What happens if we get a bad rating?”

Omar shrugged. “Maybe you want a lift, and all the drivers see your rating, so they don’t come fetch you. Maybe the only driver who will pick you up is one who has a bad rating himself.”

I sat, stunned. What if Omar didn’t give me a good rating? How did you get a good rating? What if I hadn’t been acting interested enough in his stories? Was he angry that I was skeptical? Or did he like me? How can you tell when your Uber driver likes you? What’s the body language?

“So,” I said, putting on a smile but acting all casual, “what sort of rating do you usually give?”

“Depends,” said Omar mysteriously.

This was terrible. I felt like I was on a date. Have I made a good impression? What would be a good topic of conversation?

“This is a nice car,” I said.

“Okay,” said Omar.

“Is this your car?”

“Mmm.”

Why was he suddenly being so withholding? The more I wanted him to like me, the cooler he became. Is there something wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?!

We arrived, and he stopped the car, and I looked at him, and he looked at me.

“So,” I said.

“So,” said Omar.

This was awkward. I didn’t want a goodnight kiss, I just wanted to know my rating. I looked meaningfully at Omar’s touch-screen. Omar looked meaningfully at me.

Slowly, guiltily, I took R20 out of my wallet.

“Thanks, Omar,” I said. “That was a really good ride.”

He took my money and smiled.

“You, sir,” he said, “are a five-star passenger.”

It’s people like me who ruin it for everyone.