Hot Box. LA Uber and Lyft tales. when yr driver is a writer

deactivated tonight by lyft

got damn was she beautiful.

little grey sweat pants with no draws, sports bra, white sneakers, overly tight curls so perfect was it a wig? belly so flat either she was the worlds greatest pilates instructor or a stripper or a Laker girl or

Temptation.

the problem was, it was 2am and we were in an irvine shell station parking lot. the request was from a guy named mario who was scuttling around the trunk of their car doing this and that. ive known a few paisans.

so when he put up one finger to coordinate what was happening in the overly stuffed trunk of her white toyota, i said, fine and wondered what about her story and the doberman puppy she had on a leash.

and him. and the hour.

typically i’m pro-dog. but my Y is new and i don’t have the mud floor mats yet. and he was holding two full Super Big Gulps.

hows a tiny woman holding an active puppy and a grown man with two huge sodas gonna control either the pop or the pup when he gets excited in my back seat?

i watched her and the dog who sure looked like he wanted to take a piss. then i looked at how he was holding those cokes, dying to spill them in my car.

also what was up with them?

bloodshot eyes. confused. unorganized. why were there sooooo many things in her trunk? why is the gas station just letting them park it there tonight? aint no repair shop in that station. do they own it? then why do they live in south gate?

sometimes i want to know everything, sometimes i dont wanna know shit officer.

they were going to kill me and steal my car, weren’t they?

what would happen to my cats?

is this how i was gonna go out? over a $16 ride? at the hands of a coked up dude and his stripper girlfriend?

blood getting lapped up by an adorable but probably also coked up puppy?

or would it be more complicated than that. like, oh man, real quick can you just let us stop at this one place? i swear it’ll be just a second.

and then she, the dog, and i were there.

waiting.

bonding.

falling.

now i have a new girlfriend who has a fucking dog and a pissed off ex-boyfriend.

that life is behind me, mario, i thought as I watched her legs and belly and searched carefully for the slightest imperfections

and failed.

and this is how drivers get in trouble. either they haven’t had the great luck of knowing some stunners

or they wanted just one more for the road

the end is nigh after all

so I said, Mario, i’m sorry i can’t take that dog and i drove away

he was all, it’s a service animal!

i said my ass!

IM RECORDING YOU! she yelled all pretty af

and before i got to the super charger a mile away, my lyft app restarted, i got a text saying i had been deactivated. and i couldn’t log back in.

i shouldnta said anything about the dog.

i shoulda lied.

always lie, america

it’s funny how thats always the moral of the story.

i shoulda yelled MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE and then they woulda thought. whew that fools crazy

my hope is i will get to talk to someone on the phone who is reasonable, who i can say it wasnt the dog,

i was saying, fuck you to all of it.

so if you wanna say fuck you back at me, i get it,

no hard feelings

but at least i’m alive long enough to tell you a little more about her about those impossible sweat shorts

see how much they tipped