The plan was to do about $100 worth of trips in the afternoon, get some sleep, and get up at about 4:00 am to see what the early morning demand was on a Friday morning. I was sure that there would be multiple trips to the airport, and I wanted to verify my beliefs. I had been struggling with staying awake earlier in the day and even though I took a nap at 11:00am during lunch break, I decided to take another short nap and then get started. The short nap was longer than what I had intended, making my start time at about 9:30 pm. Just as always, the rides were coming in one after another but due to the late start, I decided that I would program my home address into the app, pick up rides along the way, call it a night and get my early start. As I approached home a request came in that made sense to accept. After dropping them off another ride came in that also made sense and I accepted it as well. On route to drop off the ride a message popped up telling me that my programed address had expired. When the ride ended, I was almost at $100 so I just kept going. Before I knew it, I had over $200 and with it now being a new day, my earnings were showing at $0. After a brief WTF moment, I figured out what was going on and went ahead and cashed out the money. As dawn approached and the activity on the roads increased, I set my sights on an additional $100 before my 12 hours was up.
At some point in the night, I ended up at the gas station in Manor where "Mr. Gas Can" (from an earlier article) got his gas and forgot his cell phone. There were lots of trips in the Manor, Hutto, Pflugerville vicinity.
I picked up a rider that was a huge dude. Not as huge as "Mr. Perfect Sun Tan" huge dude (from an earlier article) but my vehicle was certainly being influenced by this rider, just as I was about to be. He talked really fast and had a certain mumbling element to his speech. I found myself using my mental tools that had allowed me to understand what Cubans were saying in Spanish when I was first exposed to them on a daily basis. They speak really fast as well. As it turns out, it is his heart that is huge and he needs this huge body to carry his heart where it is needed. As we talked about life and the unfortunate occurrences of lives that are cut way to short in life for various reasons including suicide, it became more and more evident who this guy was. He is one of those people that everyone turns to when they are in crisis. He commented that he has so many conversations as he supports those who share their challenges with him, but that he does not have an outlet for himself when he needs to talk to someone. It is always a special thing when a conversation with a rider reveals details that you were not expecting from them. Over and over, I experience the saying "you can't judge a book by its cover". This guy is an angel.
Something major was going on at the Mala Vida club downtown on "Dirty 6th Street". I had taken a gentleman from Round Rock there and picked up 3 ladies from across the freeway and dropped them off there as well. The line to get in trailed down the block. The girls had asked if I was going to still be driving at 2:00 am and told them that I hoped to not be. (We know how that turned out). At some point after 2:00am I had a request to pick up from the Mala Vida. It turned out to be 4 Mexican ladies and there are few things more fun than interacting with partially intoxicated Mexican girls. It was also the longest ride of the night going from downtown all the way out to almost Liberty Hill. So much silliness, laughter, and an amazing conversation with the lady in the passenger seat about multiple languages and about my adventurous history with my second language. Very fun ride.
Taking a step back to the 3 ladies that were picked up on the other side of I-35 from Mala Vida, the app had a pick up location in an alley behind some apartments. I turned up the alley and headed uphill to the location. There was a low-rider looking car with a guy standing beside wearing his cap sideways, or perhaps it was because the top of his brain was coming unscrewed, and a big enough spot on the side to go around the car. There were some other people in the backyard of an apartment, and I was not sure what was going on there, but I was sure that I was not going to stop in that alley for a pick up. They all stared at me as I gracefully and with authority whipped my vehicle around theirs. I circled the building and as I was coming up to the alley again, I sent a message asking where they wanted me to pick them up. Just as I sent the message they came walking around the corner from the alley. Problem solved.
As anticipated, I did have an airport run from Round Rock. Great conversation with a gentleman that was a manager at a mechanical company, which is right down my alley, as they say. He asked about my experience and upon sharing that information with him, he realized that we had something in common. I obtained his contact information and will reach out to him on LinkedIn. This was not the first conversation like this that I have had. There have been many, and I begin thinking about how I had within my reach a manner to exert some influence for positive change within various industries where I have witnessed a need. I was also hungry and running low on gasoline. There were not any flights arriving at 4:30am and I took advantage of the moment to get some gasoline and a Whataburger #21 with sausage (yes, I changed my Whataburger preference) while waiting for a possible ride request. This was the first time I had waited in the que for a ride request at the airport although I was really at the waiting spot to consume my food.
A long and detailed conversation with a young man on his way to work in Taylor. He had been gifted a car and the car kept overheating. He took it to the shop and the mechanic supposedly fixed the issue and he only needs to go by and pick it up. In the meantime, he was considering a different vehicle and became enamored with a Mustang. The downpayment turned out to be more than he could come up with, so his focus shifted back to the existing vehicle. We discussed every possible scenario that was causing the car to overheat. The mechanic found a thermostat housing with a small leak and replaced it as a solution to the issue. I told him that unless it leaked all of the fluid out, this was probably not the primary issue. We ended up agreeing that the fan for the radiator may not be functioning as when the car is at speed on the road, everything is fine. The problem occurs when stopped. Sounds exactly like a fan problem to me.
I almost gave in to my desire to drink a Pepsi and thus kill my 3-day abstention but as I entered the soda section of the store (I was going to do it) I saw that they had the 0 sugar energy drinks that I like. Those worked better anyway, and I drank 2 of those throughout the 12-hour event to make sure I didn't doze off.
24 trips in total including the cursing female bartender at 3:00am that thought she was old at 45 years old. From what I could tell from the conversation, she was a lesbian, but she lit up when I told her that I loved her. "I love you too" she replied. Conversation after conversation with a few quite ones scattered in. It is interesting to see the dynamic of the requests evolve throughout the evening, night, deep night, and into the morning.
I looked at the countdown to 12 hours on the Uber app and I had a whole 10 minutes left before they shut me down. I signed off and release a sigh of satisfaction at an amazing 12 hours that lasted from dusk 'til dawn. This is life and is a major reason why I drive Uber and have been driving for almost 9 years.
