May 15th, 2015
It’s Friday night, graduation weekend and my 6th day driving for Uber. I have decided to take it easy on my first weekend and I promised myself I will log off before 11pm. I don’t want to deal with the city’s drunkest and I am worried about people vomiting in my car. At 9:36 I get a request just up the road so I immediately accept and make my way to a well known local brewery. After pressing “arrive” and waiting a few minutes I decide to call. Gary answers the phone. I tell him who I am and inform him that my location is in the parking lot on the south side of the brewery.
“We’ll be right out”.
A few minutes later I get a call from Gary asking where I am. “I am in the parking lot on the south side of the brewery”.
“We’re at Main and 8th.”
“Stay there, I’ll be there in less than 10 seconds.”
There they are, two 50 somethings standing on the corner waiting for me while I waited for them. Amazing. I roll down the window to ask if they are waiting for an Uber, confirm the ride and pull into a parking space so they can climb in. They’re heading to a town 18 miles from where we are and I am excited because I know I will make more money on this run than by taking a few short runs around town. This will be my last ride for the night.
It is deadly quiet in the car. I ask a couple of basic questions trying to get a conversation going but they are not interested. They aren’t even talking to each other. The silence is heavy while I focus on driving.
The distance between the two cities is desolate. There are no houses, commercial strips or other signs of humanity for the larger portion of this route.
We are about 8 miles into the trip, in the middle of nowhere when I glance in my rearview mirror. Nothing interesting back there, just a woman sleeping and a man looking out the window at absolutely nothing. Suddenly I hear a horrible sound. It comes only seconds before the smell and I know that one of my worst Uber fears has come true!
As I pull onto the shoulder I tell the woman to open the door if she has more. She doesn’t. “Tell me that landed in your lap”, I say as I pull back onto the highway.
“It did”.
Perfect. I am not even halfway through the drive, and I can’t leave these people here. Its a terrible thing to do, I risk getting banned from Uber as well as receiving a visit from the State Police or Sheriff’s Department. In any case, it’s my job to get people home safely so I grit my teeth, roll down the windows and proceed towards the destination.
After another 15 grueling minutes I am continually reminded of a quote that came up during a group camping trip. “If you can smell it, it’s in you”. This has never been more true! It’s horrible and it would take three days before the smell stopped appearing randomly wherever I was, somehow attaching itself to my very senses.
As we pull into town her window rolls down and she starts again. Now she’s puking on the side of my car! I start to pull over as I say “Please stop puking on my car!”. She states that she is finished and then it happens, the most amazing thing you could imagine- she poops her pants.
When I arrive at the destination the guy offers me a hose, he doesn’t offer to clean up and doesn’t stick around until I finish. He has problems of his own- his wife is covered in vomit and she crapped her pants!
It’s all over the place. From the back of my seat to behind her headrest and everywhere in between. It’s incredible really, the expanse of it.
My wife’s going to be thrilled. These two just ruined our car and I only made $21.59! After a heartfelt letter to Uber the couple was charged a $200 cleaning fee. Cleaning supplies included a towel, baking soda, paper towels, soap and hot water, a toothpick and an amazing enzyme based product I picked up at a local pet store.
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