i should not be here right now.
usually i love driving on halloween but thursday i wasn’t feeling it. you could tell because when i should have been out there after dark, i was instead dilly dallying by handwashing my car, getting a sandwich and going to universal to charge up.
if i had been into it, i would have done those things wednesday so id be ready to get out there by 6. instead it was ten and i was playing chess on my phone waiting for my car to get charged above 60.
i had lyft and uber on so i could see what rides were coming in. $7, $8. Nothing great.
kept charging and then i saw something id never seen before.
$154 to go an hour and twenty minutes north.
as you know i smoke a lot of pot.
and ive seen and done some things. so my vision isn’t always reliable.
my brother taught me to just accept those offers quickly and then double-check on the price later. otherwise some other driver would get the trip and i’d be kicking myself.
lyft and uber only give you seconds to decide if you want a ride or not. it’s nerve-wracking to some. especially if they’re driving when the offer comes in. neither company should be allowed to do that. super dangerous and the driver is not insured during that period of the trip.
i may get commercial insurance if i start doing more private rides because then id be able to advertise.
hot box private driver at yr service.
the drawback is both companies can pull you off the platform if you accept and then cancel too many rides. so you have to try to be careful because there isn’t a set percentage that automatically boots you. everythings a guessing game.
clicked the button to accept, quickly double-checked all the info. yep $154. going to fraizer park. should be 80 minutes or so.
i told the car the address and the tesla map appeared on the screen and yep, about an hour twenty. it was late enough that anyone who was going out for halloween were out. or in. but not on the roads.
so i opened the door, took the charger arm off my car and back into its holder for the next person.
and drove up the hill to the universal lyft lot and picked her up.
her name was rachel and she was dressed as a slutty tinkerbell. great costume. probably handmade. too good. said she was drunk but you couldn’t tell other than she was as talkative as i was.
we sped through the valley, past six flags, up the 5 gabbing, laughing. it was cool.
she was one of the go-to people for hair and makeup for the movie and tv studios.
so smart except for one thing. she didn’t trust newspapers.
what? i asked. we cant get married then, i sighed.
my husband will be relieved to hear that, she said and laughed.
then we both laughed and changed the subject back to fun things like celebs.
you are so beautiful i said, trying to find the way to ask her if she ever boned someone famous.
instead, i just said, who was the celeb who impressed you the most?
deion sanders
not what i was expecting.
i also didnt expect to be at 14% battery when i got off the freeway and began winding my way through the woods of fraizer park to this nice woman’s log cabin.
theres a thing about electric vehicles they dont really tell you about. and that’s theyre way more efficient in stop-and-go traffic than they are on the freeway at 11pm on halloween night when no one is on the road except truckers and one particular lyft driver who foolishly thought he had enough juice to go the 80 miles and then 20 more to the closest super charger.
oh no. i said without thinking, staring at the tiny 14 on the giant ipad screen, which really should get larger as it drops below 20, the level tesla says it should never go under.
what is it? tinkerbell asked, startled.
this says i have just enough battery to get to your house, turn around and keep going north to the charger.
if it says you have enough, why are you saying oh no? she asked.
because when we left it said i’d have twice as much juice to get to your house, so im not sure i trust it tonight.
ah, regenerative braking, rachel said, knowing the science behind how when EVs and hybrids slow down or brake, the battery recharges itself. dont ask me how it does it. everythings magic to me.
dropped her off at her place and i was at 13%. i turned around and started driving through the pitch black woods of this beautiful part of southern california that is so high up, it’s where LA weathercasters go when they want to show the first day of snow.
sometimes they have to close the freeway up there because of ice and snow. next to the energy number was the temperature: 34 degrees. it was 65 where i picked her up.
im going to die in the cold and a bear is going to eat me i thought after i remembered my new phone, which barely worked in good service, wasn’t really working in the woods.
damn you boost mobile!
but it was playing springsteen on shuffle for me, so i took that as a good sign as I crept slowly so as not to expend much energy for what my map said would be a 25-minute drive.
how was i supposed to drive for 25 minutes and only use 14, now 13% of the battery?
and how was the estimate saying it would have 4% when i got to the charger?
so i said to the steering wheel, fine, if you think we can make it there, imma let you drive
and i flicked the switch to Full Self Driving, or what i call Robot Mode and i let the car take over.
it drove slower than i do. but everyone does. the new software update had it hugging the turns nicely and it did something wonderfully that i dont do well: it turned on the brights and automatically turned them to normal when a car approached.
my eyes were glued on the numbers. they didn’t move much. we were at 12% but had driven for 5 minutes through this wilderness i knew nothing about and where very few lived.
we passed a closed-down gas station and then an opened one and never had i felt so much fomo for petroleum before. as we passed, my lower lip stuck out and i pressed my hand at the window at the gas pumps which anyone could use… except me.
the robot car whizzed past it.
i searched for things that weren’t there. surely that empty real estate building has an EV charger. even a slow one would do the job. a half hour’s worth would guarantee i could make it to the Tejon Pass where the fast chargers were lined up and ready.
the robot took the service road that ran parallel to the 5 freeway and i thought, ah yes, smart, creep along, start, stop, start stop your way to almost-Bakersfield. genius, robot car!
and then it turned us onto the onramp of the freeway and i was all uhhhhh.
we were at 10 percent with 10 miles to go to the charger.
and now on the one place that sucked all our juice out: the frickin freeway.
still i let it drive. and it did, up the grapevine, and then down it, slowly, but not annoyingly so. fortunately dozens of semi trucks were putt-putting it along too.
then a miracle happened. the estimate went up, claiming we would have 5% battery when we arrived, then 6%.
how is this happening? i thought with neither my hands or feet on the wheel or on the pedals.
The Lord, my inner monologue answered.
and i said, yeah, guess so. then i said Thank you Lord.
and Bruce played and i couldn’t believe my good luck, and then i said to myself, ok so if the Lord loves me, where have all the bitches been lately?
and the voice said,
the last thing you need right now tony is more bitches
and we drove and the numbers didn’t move.
and we got off at the exit and i pulled up into the charger with 10% miraculously, and plugged the power into the car,
and walked across the street in the wind to a denny’s that was about to close
ordered a grand slam breakfast to go and asked to use the john
and i whizzed and prayed and gave thanks because, woah.