Goodbye Uber pool

January 23, 2018 Tuesday

After taking Uber pool from Maryland Parkway to Cathedral Way, I told myself that it would be the last time I would take Uber pool for the rest of my stay here in Vegas. I don’t want to ride anymore with strangers.
Sometimes I clicked Uberpool hoping that there wouldn’t be any rider going to the same address and I’ve been lucky a couple of times. Even if I chose Uber pool, I was most of the time the only passenger.
But of course those were 50/50 chances.

Last Tuesday I rode with an older man. We picked him up in front of a restaurant in an old looking building. It took him a while to get on the car because he moved sooooooo slow. I don’t fault him for that because old people move slower, like me. He had a hard time getting seated and had to be helped a little by the driver. The driver was friendly and he told me the guy training him to box is a Filipino.

While he’s physically old, he is sharp when it comes to sports cars. His conversational topic with the driver was how fast his cars were.

He was the first to be dropped off and again, he was sooooo slow.
It’s not that he’s slow that makes me decide no longer to share a ride, but his smell. He smelled like he hasn’t had a body scrub, foot spa, hair grooming and thorough bath since his 50th birthday.

One time, I also shared a ride with a hippie guy, so upbeat and parang sobra sa adrenaline or naka weed. We dropped him off at an apartment complex that has seen better days. Medyo parang naawa ako. Most especially when he told the Uber driver that he’s been looking for a job and has not been lucky. Pagbaba nya parang I wanted to give him $20 but he didn’t look poor or homeless. Parang gusto kong bumalik doon at bigyan sya ng blankets and groceries. My husband always tells me huwag kong problemahin problema ng ibang tao, kaya daw lagi akong may migraine.

So rest muna ako from Uberpool. I’ve been taking Uber X only this past few days.

The other day when I got on the Uber car, it smelled smoke, cigarette smoke. I asked the driver if he smoked inside his vehicle. He said no but he picked up three men who smelled like smoke. I didn’t believe him at first. I was skeptical. He told me one guy tried to smoke but his companion stopped him. I told him when I get off my clothes, hair, skin would smell like smoke. He wanted to open the windows but it was so cold naman. He told me he picked up from a casino a man who looks like an Indian. He was dirty and seemed drunk. He thought he was homeless. His two female passengers became uncomfortable because of the man’s appearance.

Uber driver dropped off the two female passengers first then brought the dirty man to Henderson. He was shocked when they reached the address. It was in a guard-gated community with million dollar homes. The security guard at the gate even greeted the man as Mister_____ welcome home.

When they reached the house’s gate, the wife who’s a white American, was waiting at the driveway. The house according to the Uber driver is huge, beautiful and must cost million dollars. He claimed the wife tried to give him a tip but he didn’t accept. Instead he told the wife, “lady please don’t call Uberpool. You clearly has money so call Uber X. Your husband makes other passengers uncomfortable”.
Apparently the husband is a habitual gambler and spends days in the casino, playing and drinking.