Nothing about the pizza’s exterior promises exceptional virtue: it sits on a dark square pan in the window, fat crust suggestive of excessive chewiness. Flimsy layers of cheese, tomato sauce and pepperoni on top deflects the gaze of unknowing passerbys. Sean is new to town and knows nothing of this pizza joint: he only caught a ride here since it was the only pizza open this late in his zip code. I tell him I am happy to wait for him as long as he gets me a slice. Money changes hands. He gets out of the car and suffers through the line of in-the-know-drunks that are lined up to carbo-load as a hangover prevention measure. He returns to the car with a couple of greasy slices in the signature checkered paper. He takes a bite. His expression goes from winter to spring. The sun comes out, the meadows are flushed with blooms. Unicorns play in the grass. “This is really good”, he whispers. “I know” I whisper back. |
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“This could be the most interesting man alive, says a passenger, pointing to a man in a fedora hat in the middle of a large group of, I assume, Chinese tourists marching up Powell street.
“Why” says the wife. “Look at the way he is holding his cigarette, so original. “Or he had a stroke,” says the wife. “Or he is trying to quit”, I say, “he seems to be both embracing and rejecting the cigarette.” “On a second thought, I don’t think it’s a cigarette” says the passenger. “You are all crazy” says their teenage son. A penguin, a duck, and a slutty santa get into a car.
Aah, right, it’s Bay to Breakers. "Ruth, hello, how are you?" I yell, delighted to see my favorite elderly passenger, who is little hard of hearing.
“I am 96, how do you think I am” she yells back. “I see…” I say “ so, where are we headed today? “Off to the Emerald city Lucy, that’s where!” Which turns out to mean Burlingame, suburb well known for it’s exciting vicinity to the airport. “Thrilling, I know” she ads. I try to strap her in, and she objects “I don’t want the damn seat belt, those broccoli cheese bombs got me little bloated”. “Ruth” I yell in her ear “if you don’t use the seatbelt in even the smallest of accidents you turn into a projectile and fly through the windshield!” “Wonderful” She says. “That is gonna solve all my problems at once” Not on my watch, I think. Not on my watch.
Mature big haired blond in Florida real-estate agent fashions hops in the car, clearly out of sorts. Her eyes are puffy under the generous paintwork and there is a painful sigh as she settles in. She gets started on the events of the day right the way. I am going to bleep it NPR style, in case moral majority is watching.
“Did you see the bleep bleep paper this bleeping morning? Bleep bleep cabinet, I haven’t slept in 3 bleeping days, bleep son of a bleep Trump ugly of the bleep on the bleeping bed of bleep. Why did I just bleep spend 2 days, bleep, in a bleeping phone bank so bleep Hillary, all so bleeped up? Bleeping stolen. Now I suppose have to bleep worry about the bleeping government in my bleeping uterus, bleep, and once there, bleep, also stay the bleep out bleep bleep vagina. Bleeping supreme bleeping court, my bleep, bleeped up anus and also, bleep. I am sorry, but, that is so bleeped.” (insert 5 more minutes of that, as we approach her destination) “Oh yes, thank you, criminal court building, on the left. I need to go in and argue a case. Thanks for letting me vent. “ “My pleasure” I say, feeling little sorry for whom she is up against at that hearing. Also, this is day 3. What she was like in the immediate aftermath is anyone’s guess. “The most I could make as a software engineer is 200k, and you know you cannot raise a family in bay area on that” says my passenger, giving me the “surely you get it” look. I let the sentence slide into a pregnant pause.
The thing is, I was liking him up till now. He was everything I like in a passenger. Chatty with a philosophical bend, nerdy, and rode shotgun. We have just bonded on the subject of transhumanism and sci-fi, my go-to subjects with the left brained. Then he started explaining why he was changing his career, from software engineering to business, which is when he dropped that little 200K a year bomb. I gave him a look assessing of how much of my outrage he could absorb without me ending up with low rating. “Sooo,” I said ”Do you ever consider the audience, before saying something like that?” Blank look. “Obviously, your millennial techno-yappie buddies are going to have a different take than your uber driver who might be raising the family in Bay Area on somewhat less than 200K. When was the last time you had an actual conversation, not counting ordering a take out, with a blue collar worker? The guys is stricken: “ OMG, you are so right, I am an idiot. I know what that sounds like, 200K is, I suppose, a lot of money. I am totally spoiled. I didn’t even have to have a job in college, like lots of my friends. But after my graduation I had few months before starting my job at google, so I worked in a homeless shelter full time. It was a lifechanging experience.” Well, they do surprise you. “Hahaha” 3 female funsters bending over in hilarity as they pile up into the car in what seems to be a hurried escape from one of the finer Marina establishment.
“You said what to her?” “That’s totally unlike you” and “we better get out of here before she runs out and tries to strangle you with her Louis Vuitton purse!” “What happen? “Are we being pursued?” I ask (always a step away from living in some Raymond Chandler fantasy). I look over my shoulder and see no one, but I still engage the gas pedal with an energetic shove and the Cmax propels forward like a startled ostrich. Thankfully, the ladies cannot wait to tell me. “We took a bathroom break and as we wait in the line there was this girl going on and on and on to her friend about some guy she was talking to at the bar. She kept saying: (and here my passenger slips into an extra whiny version of a valley girl accent) like, why is that guy talking to me? I want his cute friend to talk to me, not him, he is so not hot, his friend is really hot, I want his friend to talk to me” The complaining apparently went on for a while till my passenger, annoyed by being subjected to this, helped out the upset woman with “because that guy is probably like what, 9 or 10? And you are only maybe 6, 6-plus *maximum*? That’s why. If you were a 10 he would be talking to you right now, I guarantee you that. You need to stay within your grade.” “And she got really upset, would you believe it? We had to get out of there. And I still need to pee” Everyone burst into laughter again, except for me, of course, because I am mature. My passenger seems to be making strange noise in the back seat, so familiar and yet so rare. I peak in the rear view mirror and catch the special sight of a millennial with a paper paper, that is, an actual edition of the New York Times. He has it folded like a pro and is making his way through the Business Pages.
There is a that characteristic smell that goes with it, the smell of fresh newsprint. I inhale long and slow, like a ex-smoker passing by a seedy bar in eastern europe. He refolds and moves onto Sports. “What’s new in the world of business?” “It’s so hard to figure out without the search feature” "So, how was your Tinder date last night? Sponge-worthy?"
I am always impressed with millennials showing deep knowledge of the 90ies pop culture... |
also san franciscoA ridesharing driver, artist and a commentator operating out of San Francisco. A r c h i v e s
September 2016
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