Here’s two stories of two rides. Seems kinda strange they happened on the same night.

Foot in Mouth

I arrive for a pickup and a young couple approach the car. I note the name on the rider account is a woman but the woman turns and walks away as the guy gets in the car. I check with him to make sure the rider account is correct as I always do. He says it’s his girl friend’s account and he just needs a ride home. Not an unusual situation but without too much thought I say “That’s one way to get rid of you”. No laugh. I can be such a dick some times.

With no hesitation he tells me he finally got up the nerve to tell her he loves her, and she said she loves him too. I quickly congratulated him hoping to make up for the earlier crack. He said he felt so good it was like being high. I said something like love being like a drug. There I go again trying to be clever.

I dropped him off and congratulated him again and drove off thinking what a lucky guy he is, for now.

The Other side of the Coin

On the same night as the previous ride, it was getting late when I picked up a guy who from the get go was not a happy camper. He wanted to go a short distance to the 7-Eleven to get a pack of cigarettes and come back. He just needed to get out of the house. Shit, not gonna make much on this one.

After some silence he proceeds to gradually relate how his brother who he’s helping out by letting him move in is moving in on his girl friend. Wow, now that’s a downer! He had gone through a rough divorce awhile back and now found a woman he felt very connected to. He was hurting. I tried to be sympathetic by asking things like is his brother older or younger and was he surprised by his behavior. He said it was unexpected and he was very hurt and angry.

I was thinking about what the deal was with the woman. He had said nothing about her specifically . As we got back to his house I tried to come up with something helpful. All I had was the woman gets to choose.