Memoirs of a Rideshare Driver: Still Crazy After All These Years

Episode 27 in a series of true rideshare stories

She comes out of her apartment with a backpack, a suitcase, and bags over each shoulder. She’s around 70 years old. It’s 100 degrees outside, but she is wearing a sweatsuit and carrying a jacket over one of her arms. She starts loading her things into the backseat, seeming worn out, and I feel like I should offer to help, but I wouldn’t be of much use since almost all of it is attached to her.

“How’s your day going?” I ask, when she finally gets in.

“To the airport,” she says.

I pause, not sure whether she misheard me or whether she’s telling me to shut up and drive.

“Uh… Sure thing. You having a good day?” I try again.

“Ugh, I don’t even know anymore.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m flying to San Francisco where my son lives, and he’s meeting me there, then we’re flying to New Zealand.”

I nod. That sounds exciting to me. I’m not sure where ‘I don’t even know anymore’ comes into the equation.

“Yeah, that’s a long day of travel,” I offer.

“It’s cold there. Our summer is starting, so that means their winter is starting. That’s why I’m dressed like this. I look a little ridiculous, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

I ask if she goes to New Zealand often and she says it’s her first time. I tell her I’ve been to four continents now, but Oceania is still on my list. I mention I lived in China for a couple years in my mid-twenties.

“For me it was Switzerland,” she says. “But I was a nanny. I didn’t get out that much.”

I tell her that still sounds like a cool experience.

“I couldn’t speak the language very well. I eventually learned enough German to go out and wait tables, but it was tough.”

I can’t imagine. When I was in China I taught English to people who already knew English. I struggled to order a glass of ice water in Mandarin, never mind waiting tables.

“The crazy things we do when we’re young,” she muses.

She says her son’s girlfriend is Chinese American and her son regularly travels with her to China and all over the world. He tells her stories of scuba diving in Singapore or hiking in Australia and all sorts of adventures they go on together.

“I finally got tired of living vicariously through him,” she says, “so I made a plan for New Zealand. We’re going to see the village from The Lord of the Rings, some beaches, some of the sights. His attitude is, he’s up for anything if Mom is paying.”

“Wow, that sounds like it should be an amazing trip.”

The more I talk to her, the more I’m confused about the ‘I don’t even know anymore’ comment when I asked her how her day was going. Maybe she just meant that travel days themselves are stressful, which is certainly true, but this sounds like a day she should be excited about. Especially when she eventually says…

“The political climate here is getting to be something that I just don’t want to be a part of, so I started doing some research and New Zealand sounded like a place I might want to be.”

“Wait, you’re moving to New Zealand?”

“Well, right now I’m just going to check it out, but yeah, if I like it, that’s the plan.”

I drop her off and wish her safe travels. And while I’m not sure she has the right attitude about it all, it sure seems like she’s on a good path. Funny that a woman who waxes nostalgic about “The crazy things we do when we’re young” seems totally oblivious to the fact that she is no longer young, and that she’s still doing it anyway.

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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.