Uber Diaries

Uber Diaries: "A Cool Chick" (Cuffing in the Cold)

I woke up feeling angsty and restless. I had a lot on my mind from the night before that I won't go into. The thought of doing anything routine sounded awful. Uber. That's what I would do. It was Sunday. Ross had taken Cassie to the park. We needed space from each other. So now I had some time. I drove to get coffee and then parked out front of the house. I called my little brother and we talked for about 40 minutes. He always knew what to say to get me back on track. And then my phone lit up. Someone needed a ride. I felt the little jolt of adrenaline and started driving to the pick up location. It was outside a Westin Hotel. A girl with a messy bun and sweats came out. Pretty. Looked like she had possibly been partying the night before. When she got in, the smell of the car changed. It was that smell that people get when they've been drinking a lot the night before Nothing too intolerable though. I'd definitely had worse smelling passengers. At least hers was masked in some Victoria's Secret body spray or something. The small effort was greatly appreciated.

"Hello!" I said. " Where to?"

" Umm, I think I'm going to Glendale. I got locked out of my air bnb so I had to stay at a hotel. I didn't wanna hit up the lady who owned it and make her feel bad so late at night...sooo..."

"That was nice of you! Wow! So you just went to a hotel?"

"Yea. This was the cheapest one I could find. LA hotels are crazy, like $700 a night. This was only $200, so..."

"Oh wow. What brings you to LA?"

"Work. I'm in Pharmaceutical sales."

"Oh wow! I've heard that's a pretty fast-paced lifestyle. Aren't you supposed to like...kind of woo or court doctors?"

"Yea. You start seeing them once a week, or pretty often you know, so you kind of become friends."

"Have you ever fallen in love with a doctor?" why not make it interesting, I thought.

That's the beautiful thing about Uber. You'll probably never see the person again, no matter how much you enjoy them or dislike them. Uber. Kind of like life. We come and go. Ok. Trying too hard here with the metaphors.

"No. I wish. But they're all old and ugly by the time I get to them. Once they're done with their 20 years of med school, they're just all pretty unattractive."

"HA!" I couldn't help it.

"But I'm still waiting on the day. It's gonna happen," she said.

"Yea, maybe when it does pretend you're gonna faint or something so he has to help you."

"Yea. Good idea!" she laughed.

"So where do you live?" I asked.

"Omg. Minneapolis," she rolled her eyes.

"Why?" I asked.

"Work. They said 'move to Minneapolis and get a promotion or don't and don't get a promotion'. So I moved. It's actually a pretty big, cool city. But it's like 4 degrees there now. It's the most insane cold. Like. You don't go out there. They freakin' heat the sidewalks, I'm not kidding."

"What!? Heated sidewalks?! That's crazy!" I said, feeling like I was chatting with an old best girlfriend.

"Yea. Everybody's busy cuffing right now."

"Cuffing? What's that?" I asked.

"You've never heard of cuffing?" she said grinning.

" No..."

"It's like...you find someone and cuff yourself to them for the winter. To stay warm."

"HA! Wow. So have you found someone?"