I spot her standing on nondescript block of Geary, dwarfed by a monumental hard shell luggage. Her face is a map of discontent as she is waving me over—it’s clear she has no expectation of this going well. She assaults the door, yanks it open, and plops on the seat with a deep sigh. My son, she informes, called the Lyft for me, and gives me a dead stare as to let me know that if it were up to her she would have never found herself in a position as compromising as calling for a ridesharing car.
I consider ignoring the mountain of a luggage still sitting at the sidewalk and just taking off , only to see what she would say, given I clearly already had a no-tip-till-hell-freezes-over kind of a passenger on my hands, but then I got out, opened the trunk, and wrestled the thing into captivity of the trunk..
I bet you are thinking we are going to the airport, she says with a glee, but I am to go to Powell bart station. (Unlike a cab driver, I do not like going to SFO one bit, but why spoil her fun, so I try to look disappointed.)
Powell bart station however is not a favorite of mine either. Exciting locale where Tenderloin schizophrenics meet the Union Square shoppoholics meet the wide-eyed this-is-not-what-I-imagined tourist, it is a bermuda triangle for a driver—the SFPD is omnipresent if you pull over for longer than 2 seconds, but invisible if 4 thugs are pulling on your handbag, the only legal behavior by a driver is … well actually there is none. You can get a moving violation for just moving.
That’s fantastic, I tell my passenger. I would *love* to take you to Powell. But given the time of the day, the area might be little trafficy and crowded and I would hate to (substitute “love to”) have you have to fight your way from the drop-off point to the Bart station with your luggage—it is rather far. While if we go to Civic Center, with less traffic (and barely more tourist-thirsty panhandlers, I don’t ad) there is a nice place to pull over and unload and the station is just few feet away.
She gives me the I ain’t nobody’s fool look and says that she wants to go where it is more convenient for HER, not more convenient for ME. (Goodie, I think, we have a live one. I can see why the son was shipping her back.)
She then pauses and gives it a thought.
How about the price, is it going to cost her more if we were to go there, she stares in with the “gotcha” expression. Actually, this might possibly cost less, I say, since it is less trafic and less time.
Wait—she then says, as if finally calling my bluff, is it then, by any chance, further from the airport, and therefore, more expensive Bart ticket? In fact—and I saw this one coming—the opposite might be true, given it is one stop closer to the airport.
But how would she get the ticket, she asks, since her son, (who knows all, since he has lived in San Francisco practically the whole summer now) said to get the ticket at Walgreens, since the machines in the station are likely to be all broken.
I try to install confidence in the Bart system in general and the ticket machines in particular by reminiscing on all the times I have used them without incident.
After this, the passenger, Betty—as I learn, decides to take a chance on me and authorizes the trip to Civic center. On the way she informs me that she is a retired nurse (hence the nurturing attitude) and, what do you know, is now thinking that driving for Lyft might be a nice way to earn some extra money. I keep my game face on as I cry inside “yes! yes!” while I imagine Betty unloading her loving ways on a passenger or two, and then getting the rating with all the reviews they would leave for her to enjoy.
I consider ignoring the mountain of a luggage still sitting at the sidewalk and just taking off , only to see what she would say, given I clearly already had a no-tip-till-hell-freezes-over kind of a passenger on my hands, but then I got out, opened the trunk, and wrestled the thing into captivity of the trunk..
I bet you are thinking we are going to the airport, she says with a glee, but I am to go to Powell bart station. (Unlike a cab driver, I do not like going to SFO one bit, but why spoil her fun, so I try to look disappointed.)
Powell bart station however is not a favorite of mine either. Exciting locale where Tenderloin schizophrenics meet the Union Square shoppoholics meet the wide-eyed this-is-not-what-I-imagined tourist, it is a bermuda triangle for a driver—the SFPD is omnipresent if you pull over for longer than 2 seconds, but invisible if 4 thugs are pulling on your handbag, the only legal behavior by a driver is … well actually there is none. You can get a moving violation for just moving.
That’s fantastic, I tell my passenger. I would *love* to take you to Powell. But given the time of the day, the area might be little trafficy and crowded and I would hate to (substitute “love to”) have you have to fight your way from the drop-off point to the Bart station with your luggage—it is rather far. While if we go to Civic Center, with less traffic (and barely more tourist-thirsty panhandlers, I don’t ad) there is a nice place to pull over and unload and the station is just few feet away.
She gives me the I ain’t nobody’s fool look and says that she wants to go where it is more convenient for HER, not more convenient for ME. (Goodie, I think, we have a live one. I can see why the son was shipping her back.)
She then pauses and gives it a thought.
How about the price, is it going to cost her more if we were to go there, she stares in with the “gotcha” expression. Actually, this might possibly cost less, I say, since it is less trafic and less time.
Wait—she then says, as if finally calling my bluff, is it then, by any chance, further from the airport, and therefore, more expensive Bart ticket? In fact—and I saw this one coming—the opposite might be true, given it is one stop closer to the airport.
But how would she get the ticket, she asks, since her son, (who knows all, since he has lived in San Francisco practically the whole summer now) said to get the ticket at Walgreens, since the machines in the station are likely to be all broken.
I try to install confidence in the Bart system in general and the ticket machines in particular by reminiscing on all the times I have used them without incident.
After this, the passenger, Betty—as I learn, decides to take a chance on me and authorizes the trip to Civic center. On the way she informs me that she is a retired nurse (hence the nurturing attitude) and, what do you know, is now thinking that driving for Lyft might be a nice way to earn some extra money. I keep my game face on as I cry inside “yes! yes!” while I imagine Betty unloading her loving ways on a passenger or two, and then getting the rating with all the reviews they would leave for her to enjoy.