Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: The Drunken Nerd
A true story of alcohol, Starcraft, and holiday parties
I wait outside the house for a few minutes before a woman appears in the window and waves to me. I take it to mean, “We’ll be right there.” A minute later she comes out to the car, but instead of getting in, she knocks on the window. I roll it down.
“He’ll be right out. He’s, um… He’s a little drunk. Just FYI.”
“Oh, uh… Okay.”
She goes back in and I keep waiting. I think of leaving. I’ve given rides to more than my share of drunks, and most of them I can handle, but the ones who come with a warning from a friend are usually the ones to keep away from: the vomit hazards, the anger management dropouts, the trance-eyed zombies who pass out so thoroughly they have to be physically lifted out of the back seat. You don’t get warnings about fun drunks.
But I’m here, and the woman seems nice, and she’s concerned for her friend, and it’s the holiday season, so tonight I decide to be nice.
I’m relieved when the guy exits the house unassisted and looks to be staying vertical without major difficulty, though he does do a confused sort of wandering as he hugs everyone goodbye. It takes them a while to get him into my car.
He gets in, smiling, and says, “These fucking bastards.”
“Who, your friends?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I love ‘em but they’re bastards. They’re like, man, we love you, but you gotta go.”
I nod. I can already see where they’re coming from, but the ride will go smoother if I don’t take their side.
“Do you have friends like that?” he asks me.
Friends who would get exhausted if I was trashed and they were reasonably sober? “Uh… Yeah, a few.”
“Yeah, they’re bastards. I love ‘em, but they’re bastards.”
“It was a good night, though, otherwise?” I ask, trying to move this along.
“Oh yeah! Amazing night! How much of a nerd are you?”
“Um… Somewhat. Why?”
“Do you play D&D?”
“No, I’ve never played it.”
“Never?”
“No. I think I probably would have liked D&D if I got into it at the right age. I was really into RPG video games—Final Fantasy and stuff. I just never had friends who played it when I was growing up, so I never tried.”
“Okay, doesn’t matter. RPGs though. You like RPGs.”
“Sure.”
“Have you played World of Warcraft?”
“No, never got into that one.”
“Doesn’t matter. Have you heard of World of Warcraft?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve heard of it plenty. Just never played it myself.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
I’m getting confused at this point. Every answer I give him seems to be followed by “doesn’t matter,” regardless of whether it’s a yes or a no. When he started off asking if I was a nerd, I assumed it was because he wanted to explain why tonight was a fun night for nerdy reasons, but I think he has lost his whole train of thought at this point.
“Have you played Warcraft? Or Warcraft II? Warcraft III?”
“A little,” I say, already guessing his reply.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’m more familiar with Starcraft,” I try. “My brothers were really into Starcraft. The Blizzard game I was more into was Diablo.”
“Fair enough,” he says.
I don’t know what he was trying to talk about, but I try to steer it back. “I played a little Warcraft though, yeah. Enough to know how it’s played and some of the races and stuff.”
“What year were you born?”
“1988.”
“Okay, same as me. Weird that you’ve never heard of Starcraft.”
I kind of want to scream at him that I’m the one who fucking brought up Starcraft. He brought up Warcraft. And I’ve heard of everything he’s mentioned so far. This is why his bastard friends are sick of him.
Instead I keep driving, watching the map, counting down the minutes until we reach his destination, which I suddenly realize is not his house, but a bar.
Jesus. That’s on him.
“How have your last few decades been?” he asks.
I am silent for a moment, processing the question.
“I’m serious! How have they been?”
I am 36. As far as my understanding of words goes, “few” generally means “more than two”. Since memories take a few years to kick in as a child, he is essentially asking, “How has your life been so far?” That’s a big question coming from a guy who can’t remember which one of us brought up Starcraft, especially considering I already know that the answer “doesn’t matter”.
“My last… few… decades…?” I ask, rolling each word out slowly in hopes he’ll understand how many years that is.
“No, I don’t know, like your last couple weeks,” he clarifies, moving the goalposts at a level that would make a politician blush.
Not long later, I get him to the bar.
He climbs up into the front seat and asks me to show him how to leave a tip in the app. I point out the buttons, saying, “You see right there? So that’s $1, $3, $5, ‘other amount’, or ‘no tip’.”
“No tip?!” he says. “What kind of asshole clicks ‘no tip’?”
“I can’t imagine.”
He clicks on “$5” and asks what he’s supposed to do now.
“Now… you… get out, and go on with your night because you are at your destination.”
“Oh, okay. Listen though, man. It pisses me off that the app won’t let me tip you more than $5.”
“It is what it is,” I say, because it’s easier than trying to tell him that I just went through the options with him and one of them was “other amount”.
“Look, you’re a good man,” he says, in that overly sincere tone that only drunk people and full-of-shit authority figures use. “You are. And during the holidays, when you get that ham or whatever, and you’re sitting down to eat that holiday dinner, just know that… um… you’re a good man.”
This goes on until I more or less push him out of the car and drive off, hoping the bar won’t serve him. As I head to the next passenger, I remember the young woman—the “bastard” friend—who came out of the house to warn me that he was “a little drunk”.
I wish it had been her account that had been used to request this ride. That way I could send her a text that said, “A little?!”
Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver is a series that tells true stories of my 10,000+ trips as a rideshare driver. I will post them every Monday.