“I am in labor”, she shouts, which explains her slow progress towards my car, something I previously blamed on her 3 bags and advanced pregnancy. I forget my previous concern—double-parking in an extra illegal bus-stoppy locale—and jump to an action-movie speed door opening and bag loading.
“don’t worry, my water already broke” she says as if that was going to be the first thing on my mind, which it was not. I knew this exact moment was coming when I was buying the car and passed on the cloth interior.
We peel off just as another contraction hits her, and given I have experience with the process, this seems to be the real deal.. not you know, one of those false labor thingies. She tries to sit but then tries lying on the side, back, floor, ceiling—which doesn’t do much—while vocalizing the experience loud enough to simulate a fog horn. I am overcome by empathy, or maybe it’s the PTSD I acquired during my own jazzy birthing experience kicking in—the whole process being just another notch in the belt of nature’s blatant disregard for human rights.
As we take off I mull over the business of love/sex/hope when life appear marginally bearable, followed by the incredibly badly designed process of pregnancy and birth, which, if it were any kind of an product experience designed by a human would result in class action lawsuits of volkswagonian proportions. Nature, being quite comfortable with high failure rates, shrugs and yawns: it’s the engine of evolution people, get on with it or die. Or on a second thought, die either way, just little later. However every dark thought does not need to be shared with someone trying to squeeze a coconut through a eyelet, or does it?
Meanwhile, back on Earth, I opt for moderate speed, since it seems like this would be a particularly bad moment to get into any sort of an accident, plus I don’t want to jerk the car around too much. I try to distract her with a lighthearted conversation about babies and puppies, but it’s not a go so I bring up the republican primaries which seemed to speed up the contractions enough that I get worried about car birth, so I give up on conversation. She only asks if we are there yet about 20 times, but I am not taking it for my lack of hosting skill.
Thankfully it is too early for traffic, and while we do suffer a Guinness World Records streak of red lights we managed to get there within Waze’s margin of error.
I abandon the car in the white zone and wrestle out her bags as she heads inside. The guard on the lobby is studiously unimpressed by yet another person running in waving arms and screaming “she is in labor” and nods indifferently towards the elevator. Upstairs, the nurses asses the situation as room-worthy and get her settled in as I unload the bags and the mom-to-be and I embrace.
“You were the best possible Lyft driver” she says… and gives me her phone number so I can check on her later. The nurse throws up her arms in the air and says “driver???? You are her Lyft driver?”
just another day on the job, people.
“don’t worry, my water already broke” she says as if that was going to be the first thing on my mind, which it was not. I knew this exact moment was coming when I was buying the car and passed on the cloth interior.
We peel off just as another contraction hits her, and given I have experience with the process, this seems to be the real deal.. not you know, one of those false labor thingies. She tries to sit but then tries lying on the side, back, floor, ceiling—which doesn’t do much—while vocalizing the experience loud enough to simulate a fog horn. I am overcome by empathy, or maybe it’s the PTSD I acquired during my own jazzy birthing experience kicking in—the whole process being just another notch in the belt of nature’s blatant disregard for human rights.
As we take off I mull over the business of love/sex/hope when life appear marginally bearable, followed by the incredibly badly designed process of pregnancy and birth, which, if it were any kind of an product experience designed by a human would result in class action lawsuits of volkswagonian proportions. Nature, being quite comfortable with high failure rates, shrugs and yawns: it’s the engine of evolution people, get on with it or die. Or on a second thought, die either way, just little later. However every dark thought does not need to be shared with someone trying to squeeze a coconut through a eyelet, or does it?
Meanwhile, back on Earth, I opt for moderate speed, since it seems like this would be a particularly bad moment to get into any sort of an accident, plus I don’t want to jerk the car around too much. I try to distract her with a lighthearted conversation about babies and puppies, but it’s not a go so I bring up the republican primaries which seemed to speed up the contractions enough that I get worried about car birth, so I give up on conversation. She only asks if we are there yet about 20 times, but I am not taking it for my lack of hosting skill.
Thankfully it is too early for traffic, and while we do suffer a Guinness World Records streak of red lights we managed to get there within Waze’s margin of error.
I abandon the car in the white zone and wrestle out her bags as she heads inside. The guard on the lobby is studiously unimpressed by yet another person running in waving arms and screaming “she is in labor” and nods indifferently towards the elevator. Upstairs, the nurses asses the situation as room-worthy and get her settled in as I unload the bags and the mom-to-be and I embrace.
“You were the best possible Lyft driver” she says… and gives me her phone number so I can check on her later. The nurse throws up her arms in the air and says “driver???? You are her Lyft driver?”
just another day on the job, people.