I Didn’t Expect My Driver To Admit This To Me

I am sitting here with a package of chile-lime mango slices and a cold Stella Artois beer.

What motivated me to put myself at risk for heartburn and indigestion with this dicey dietary decision?

My Lyft ride home tonight. That’s what.

Yep. My evening ride home proved to be a wee bit challenging for the Lyft driver, (let’s call him Driver Dan) and myself.

The ride started with chatty Driver Dan asking me all kinds of random questions. So many questions that he missed the street he was supposed to turn on. Realizing this, Driver Dan paused and asked me where he should turn to head back in the right direction.

My inner voice said:

Really Driver Dan?!? Don’t you have a GPS going? Last time I checked, my name wasn’t Ways, Google Maps, or Thomas Guide.

(What’s a Thomas Guide? Google it kids! And yes, I realize I just dated myself to pre-historic times!)

I politely told Driver Dan I was visually impaired and I wasn’t sure which street he was currently on. I thought it was best for him to turn up the volume on the GPS and follow it!

I was a little annoyed by his preventable navigation fail — and now his pungent bad breath, which released with every word he spoke, was flowing into the backseat. Wow!  That smell is aggressive! Hopefully, Driver Dan will shut the hell up and keep his halitosis to himself for the rest of the ride!

We rode in sweet silence until we hit my neighborhood and turned onto my street. I told Driver Dan that my house was on the left side of the street, near the end of the block. I repeated my address number and asked him to look for it. Driver Dan started to slow down and look around, like most of the drivers do, as he got closer to the location of my house. He comes to a stop and says, almost jokingly, something I was not expecting.

Brace yourself loves!

He says, “So, uhh, I can’t see too good at night. I mean, I can’t see the numbers on the houses that well when it’s dark. Can you see the numbers?”

My inner Voice said:

Are you fucking kidding me Driver Dan? Did you just admit to me that you can’t see that well at night, which includes honing in on home address numbers?? Omg. Yes. Yes you did and it’s kind of a big deal!

With a bit of disbelief in my voice, I reminded Driver Dan that I was legally blind AND, I can’t see the addresses either!

My inner voice said:

Oh, this is just fucking great! We BOTH can’t see the numbers on the houses. Shit…What is my Plan B going to be?!?

Driver Dan then decides to stop the car in the middle of the road and ask me if I could see my house, or better yet, could I call someone to come out of the house? I said, no. I explained again that I can’t see the houses and I was not about to tell Driver Dan that no one was home.

“How do you know which house is yours if you can’t see it?” he asked.

I replied, “Well, Driver Dan, EVERY other driver I’ve had CAN see the address and pulls up to the front of my house. Once I am out on the sidewalk and walk closer, I can tell it’s mine with the little vision I have.”.

“Oh”. That was all Driver Dan could say. And with breath that smelled like ass, I didn’t want to hear anymore!

Since that conversation got us nowhere (literally), he gets the brilliant idea to pull over and get out of the car. Driver Dan starts galavanting down the street to get a closer look at the house numbers, whilst I sat in the car wondering if this was really happening.

Totally annoyed now, I decide to step out of the car to hear Driver Dan yelling out address numbers to me. It was pretty clear we needed to go a few more houses down the street to get to mine. I yell back to Driver Dan that I was not going to walk about my hood in the dark and he needed to come back to the car and drive further down the street.

My inner voice said:

Seriously? WTF Driver Dan! How long is it going to take to get me home! I should think about carry one of those little mini boxes of wine in my purse for ttimes like this!

We both got back in the car and Driver Dan pulls away from the curb. He proceeds to inch his way down the left — yes, the wrong side of the street — in hopes he can see my address some way, somehow. Luckily, the street I live on is not that busy — so no headlights were coming our way.

Within a minute or two, Driver Dan excitedly says, “Hey! 10936!!!! Here it is!!”.

He was so happy to find my house, as was I. I told him that he really should wear glasses if he chooses to drive at night. Relying on the passenger to find an address may not work out in his favor in the future. And if I, or any other blind person for that matter, had been going to an unfamiliar destination with him as the driver, it could have become a very uncomfortable and nerve-racking situation. It could be quite scary too! I continued on a little more about what I thought reasonable expectations of a rideshare driver were. You know, like having good vision — day or night — with or without glasses — Ya gettin’ this Danny Boy!? I won’t bore you with the rest of it. Let’s just say, I drove the point home. Pun intended! Driver Dan began apologizing, but all I could hear was a lot of backpedaling and excuses. With every word spoken, his atrocious breath flowed towards the back seat. Oh, hell to the no! I was not having any more of that from Driver Dan at this moment.

I quickly got out with a “Thanks” and shut the car door. I took a long inhale of the fresh night air. It was glorious.

My inner voice had one more thing to say:

Omg. That was sooo ridiculous!!

Driver Dan, you’re dead to me.

I got into my house, dropped my bags, and promptly reported him to Lyft. I wrote the details of what Driver Dan admitted to me and the fiasco that transpired because of it. I will never be matched with Driver Dan again and I hope he gets his vision checked out as I strongly, very strongly, suggested!

And in case you were wondering, chile-lime mango slices and a cold Stella Artois beer pairs nicely together! Cheers!! X