Uber Stories: Intangible Assets

Nick got me there. To Middlebury, that is. He’d requested a ride at 7:45 a.m. from Sheep Farm Road — every bit as quaint as it sounds — to the Rutland Airport on Saturday morning, Aug. 7. $46. Which even without tip mathed out to about $25 an hour — My minimum benchmark for accepting a ride. 

I figured I could give that one ride first thing, then head home. Then I could choose if I’d head south to the Ludlow skatepark contest or north to Warren for the annual jam. I was honestly torn. I knew both would be fun. I hadn’t been to Ludlow since they rebuilt it, but I’d stopped by Warren the previous day and received just enough motivation and shit to feel the pull in that direction, too. But I disgress, this is supposed to be a story about Uber rides. 

When I pulled up to the house to pick up Nick, I realized I’d been there before. I’m pretty sure I dropped him off once or something. I arrived as scheduled and swiftly turned around so my trunk was ready to open for his bags and we could zip out of the driveway and back to Rutland with ease. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. 

All told it was about 15 minutes — uber won’t give you a cancel fee if you cancel before the 10 minute mark on scheduled rides, so I had no choice. At 7:45 I sent him a message. Then another. Then I called using the free data service they provide when there’s no cell coverage. Thank god for my satellite plan, I thought. But Nick didn’t answer. 

I was a beautiful morning though, and I said f it. I’ll get out and walk around. See if there’s were any pictures to be taken. I was surrounded by classic Vermont barns bathed in early-morning sunlight and I had direct access to private property. Why not take advantage? 

I snapped a couple shots of the barn next door and then got back in the car. 3 more minutes to go.

I swiped around on the map. There was a workforce place (in fact the barn I’d just photographed) and a bee sanctuary near by. I thought, maybe someone else had requested the ride and put in the address wrong, so as the time ticked by, I pulled out to explore those options.

I took a couple different angles then headed back to the original address to give Nick one more chance to appear. When he did not, I confidently canceled the ride, got my $21 cancel fee and decided to head back to town to see what other shots I could get. Plus, the Middlebury language immersion program had wrapped up the previous day, and certainly someone else would be requesting a ride soon.

I drove down the dirt road a few hundred feet and turned into the driveway of the workforce farm next door. It was stunning and as a photographer, I knew it was where I was meant to be. Not for the pick up, but to capture this shot.

I was waiting for the sun to come back out trying to find a sweet angle of downtown Middlebury when I got my next request.

Xavier.*

A fun French name, fitting for the French program I thought and pictured someone from Montreal or Austria— perhaps learning Russian or German this summer in Vermont.

Of course, I was dead wrong.

Xavier was in his 30s, black and from Minnesota. 

“So is Xavier your real name or your French class name?” I asked.

He laughed. “It’s my real name.”

He was in fact studying French that summer. The name was just a coincidence, but we started our chat by talking about his classmate Sam, who I’d driven the day before and was married to an Irish guy. That led us to love and marriage very quickly and he said, “I’m not trying to date to date. I am trying to date to get married and have a family.”

I told him my divorce story and talk soon pivoted to business, law, work, real estate and other things. It felt like two executives having a meeting in a board room. Productive, exciting and high energy. I stayed in Route 7 the entire way so my brain could focus on our chat and the time melted away with record pace.

As I was getting close to the airport, I got my next request. $6 picking up one door down at the airport. Easy accept, although I’d already made the conscious decision to accept all rides until I was ready to head to Warren at 1, because I knew if I did, the uber gods would get me there and pay me along the way.

Ride 2

My next fare was a family of four. Mom originally from Vermont, dad from the Midwest and young kids probably from previous relationships. They lived in Chicago and had been visiting family in Vermont. They were going to do a little Burlington tourism before heading to Montreal to fly home. 

The vibe was very different. Quiet and calm, the kids were cute and well-behaved. I told them about my brief stint in Chicago and asked what they did.

“I’m a consultant,” the dad sitting in my passenger seat replied. “And my wife has a counseling practice, marriage and families mostly.”

“Important work,” I replied.

“Yeah, relationships are hard.” 

We continued to chat until arriving at the Greyhound station, where the mom had figured was a good downtown drop off. But with two kids and bags, it seemed like a long walk to anything good, so I brought them right to Church Street instead. 

Ride 3

I decided it was time to stop the app and pee. Burlington is a busy market, especially on a Saturday, and you don’t get a break unless you turn it off. So I clicked last ride and took a young woman from point a to point b. We didn’t really talk, but she did laugh when I hit a speed bump a little too fast and couldn’t help but let out a little gasp. 

“They really sneak up on you,” she said.

I dropped her off at an apartment complex and pulled into a parking spot to find the nearest restroom. Uber has a feature where it shows you what’s nearby and I selected Cumberland farms as my destination. I clicked navigate, which of course, signed me back online. Immediately I got another ping. $9. Beholden to my robot master, I accepted. 

Guess I’ll hold it, I thought.

Ride 4

My next pick up was at a low-income apartment complex on the waterfront and the couple was going fishing on the Winooski River. On a hotness scale, she was a 3 and he was maybe a 4, but you could tell they were meant for each other. Our banter was instant. She was originally from Vermont and had to live in Burlington because she was on disability and couldn’t drive. He’d recently moved up from Georgia (the state) because, as she so eloquently put it, “we fell madly in love.”

My heart swelled a little bit. “You know what they say about a man who can fish?”

“What?” She asked.

“That he’s a keeper, you’ll always be fed.” 

She laughed and asked if we could stop by a convenience store on the way, assuming it was still there. I said sure and we headed off to Winooski. 

Winooski is, of course, being completely rebuilt and the store she remembered had been converted into a Korean restaurant, so she said, “oh well, just take us to the destination.” 

I stopped the car and she grabbed one of the water bottles I keep in my door for passengers. 

“Is this free?” She asked.

“Yes, that’s for you. Please take it.”

She happily obliged and I turned the app off again, planning to head to the nearby Shell Station to finally go pee.

I gassed up and took a few minutes to reset my brain before turning the app back on. Another instant bing, this time to Richmond— 10 highway miles south. It was a decent fare from a time stand point and I was excited to see double digits on the offer card. $16.

Ride 5

I zipped down to a clean, active farm on Route 2 where I found Jose, Diego and Fernando waiting for a ride to the University Mall. Dressed in their finest western wear and reeking of cologne, they went to pile in the back seat and I gestured that one could sit up front. Jose’s English was the best, but it was still broken. I dug deep for my espanol, but came up short and only managed to get their names and that they were from Mexico. 

Once we said our adios, the smell lingered and I rolled down the windows to head to my next fare at the UVM campus. 

Ride 6

I picked up Chris, a handsome black guy with a big smile, and asked, “does it still smell like cologne in here?”

With an accent I couldn’t quite pinpoint he replied, “No. Well, maybe a little.”

I told him about the previous ride and he said, “I’ve noticed Americans don’t wear a lot of cologne.”

“I guess,” I said. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from the Congo.”

He was at UVM to get his PhD in mechanical engineering but before we got to that he continued to tell me his thoughts on Americans.

“The only thing I’ve noticed about all Americans is they love to fight and they love guns.”

I had to correct him. 

“Hey, I’m a lover not a fighter. I don’t like guns and I don’t really want to be friends with people who have them. So be careful putting people in boxes.”

“This is a really nice car,” he quickly replied.

The rest of the ride was pleasant and the next request was exactly what I’d been waiting for. A $25 ride to Huntington, Vt. Not exactly closer Warren time-wise, but in the right direction and off the beaten path. 

Ride 7

It was another airport pick up. A couple in their 50s who’d just flown back from vacation in Alaska. Needless to say, they were beat, but offered classic Vermont vibes. The woman immediately put on a mask and said, “I hope it’s just the flight, but I have a sore throat.”

“That’s very considerate of you, I appreciate it,” I said.

The ride had one stop in Richmond. We were picking up their “littles” ages 4 and 9. They didn’t give many more details, but I kind of assumed they meant grandkids because I’m so used to driving 19-year-old moms.  

But as I’ve learned in previous rides, you should never assume. And when we stopped at the house it became super clear that it was the uncle’s and these were their kids. 

“Daddy!” the youngest screamed with glee. The dad snapped in the car seat and handed him a souvenir spiderman toy he’d made sure to keep on top of his luggage. The older son had a backpack with a baseball bat and mitt attached and immediately launched into a story about the big game later. “It’s basically the World Series,” he said to his mom. 

It was so touching that it took every ounce of my being not to straight up cry, but we still had ten minutes to go, so I breathed deep and we headed out to Huntington. 

We pulled into a classic Vermont family home on dirt road with multiple turtle crossing signs. I had zero service, satellite or otherwise and I fumbled to find directions as they unloaded. When they were done I asked, “would I be able to hop on your WiFi?”

“It’s really slow,” the dad replied. “You just need directions out of here?”

The mom chimed in, “just go back the way you came and turn left on the pavement. You’ll get service back pretty quickly. And if you’re going to Warren, you’ll wanna get back on 89 anyway.”

I thanked her and backed out of their driveway ready to leave the uber world and become a civilian again. 

Once I got back to cell service I realized I absolutely did not want to take 89 to Warren when the shorter and more scenic option was down Route 100 and over the Appalachian gap. Like, duh.

I had to pee again and the problem with this plan was there are not public restrooms on this rural route, but there is ample nature and I finally found the perfect pull off and gave myself another break, sitting in the woods completely alone and watching the river below. 

It was just the reset I needed because it was time to shift into play mode and the Appalachian gap lookout point was only a mile or two away. 

The wind was whipping and puffy clouds dotted the sky. I busted out my tripod to attempt to timelapse the moment, hopping the guardrail to get the right angles.  

As I was attempting to steady my shot, a heavy-set mom with her adult son walked over. 

“See, I told you we should go where the person with the tri-pod is.” 

I laughed, “the view is infinitely better on this side, too.”

The son grimaced as his mom excitedly started to climb the guardrail in her pink plastic slides.

“I make him so nervous,” she laughed. “I can’t even walk down the stairs without him freaking out. But my balance has gotten better.”

Honestly, she was making me nervous too, as I looked down the steep embankment in front of me and the cold wind shook my tripod. But I admired her gumption, pointed out the low spot to cross, and offered her a shoulder to lean on. She succeeded in joining me and gasped at the vastly improved views.

“You weren’t kidding. See, I knew you would know.”

It felt good and I was satisfied with my shots so I made sure she got safely back to the pavement and then wished them well.

Next stop, Warren. 

That family was going to Warren too, but Warren Falls, where as I was going to the skatepark for shred fest V. I knew that like my uber passengers, I wouldn’t be seeing them again. 

I stopped for provisions- beer, a cooler and ice. I was so proud of myself for not just settling for warm beer like my younger self would have, and packed the cooler tightly with a 6 pack of Naragansett tall boys that the clerk and I had deemed a much better value at $7 than the $13 6 pack of Von Trapp light smalls. 

I was about to take off when I realized I had beer but no water, so I swung back into the convenience store to grab a bottle.

“Long time no see,” the clerk said almost on cue.

“This is how I know I’m an adult,” I told him. “My younger self believed there was water in beer.”

He laughed. “I used to think the same thing about coffee.”

Now fully ready for fun, I pulled into the first parking spot at the Warren Skatepark without even looking for another one, put on my knee pads snd helmet and went to go skate before things got “too crazy.”

The event was near perfect and in addition to skating, bands and creating content, I ran into Nicholas, who I’d seen there the day before. 

“Glad to see you made it back. I knew you would,” he said. 

After some skating, we started to chat again. 

“Have we met before?” I asked. “Because I feel like we have.”

“You mean, before yesterday?” he said. “Probably.”

“Yeah, it was in a previous life, I think. I refer to every five year period of my life as a life time.”

“That makes sense,” he said. “I feel that way too. So now that you’re an adult, the only thing left is kids.”

His words hit like a dagger after the family- themed day I had. 

“Are you my prophet?” I laughed. 

“Maybe.”

And on a day I set out to make $46 and couldn’t decide between going north and south, I’d handed my faith to the universe and made $120 instead. 

Plus I’d gotten so much more than money out of the day. What I’d earned were “intangible assets,” a term Xavier had used that stuck. Some things are worth way more than money. 

*some names and details have been changed for privacy stuff, others stayed the same for dramatic effect. Seriously though, message me with any concerns.