Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: Curb Your Enthushiashm
Episode 29 in a series of true rideshare stories
"Edge of Seventeen" by Stevie Nicks is on the radio when he gets in, and he tells me it's funny if you sing it in a Sean Connery impression. When the chorus arrives, he demonstrates: "Jusht like the one-winged dove shingsh a shong, shoundsh like she'sh shinging."
I laugh, which turns out to be a mistake.
He proceeds to ask me if I know Sean Connery's favorite US state and then informs me it's Mishishippi. I tell him I've heard when Connery went to Canada, he was fond of Shashkatchewan.
Reasonably, that would be the end of the Connery jokes and we would talk about something else. Instead, he keeps going. Connery's favorite tongue twister is "She shellsh shea shellsh by the shea shore." His favorite Elvis song is “Shushpicioush Mindsh”. What if he sang this song, or that song? Half of them aren't even clever. It's stuff like "Danny Boy" that doesn't even have an abnormal number of s's in it.
I keep trying to ask this guy what he does for living, or where he's from, or what his hobbies are, or any ice breaker to get us past the Connery jokes, but no matter what I ask, he offers a one-sentence reply and goesh right back to hish Connery jokesh.
When you tell a joke to a four-year-old and he loves it, he often wants to hear it a hundred times, and it can be endearing, for a while, but even with a four-year-old, after a few minutes it gets tedious and you start going, "Okay, bud. Time to move on."
It'sh not endearing in the leasht when it'sh a guy in hish fortiesh, and you're shtuck in a car with him for twenty minutesh while he keepsh making the shame joke over and over, and wantsh you to keep thinking up new versionsh of the joke ash well. Twenty minutesh! Twenty minutesh of jokesh about a shpeshific shpeech impediment. It'sh exshaushting.
I finally drop him off, thanking God I'm finally away from this man and his one joke. Then, in a bizarre coincidence you’d be forgiven for not even believing, my next passenger has the same speech impediment as Sean Connery, pronouncing his s's as sh's. The unlikelihood of this makes it instantly hilarious to me and I struggle not to burst out laughing every time he talks. He probably thinksh I'm an ash-hole, and I don't neshesharily dishagree.
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.