My June Riders

The month of June was busy and these are the highlights from my rides this month:

THE FRENCH NAVY: When was the last time you spoke to someone in the French Navy?  Most likely the answer is never, but I picked up two guys who had been on a ship for the past five months.  One of them spoke no English and the other spoke some English and was using a translator.  I dug deep into my memory and found about 6-10 French words I learned forty years ago.  I was able to communicate a little with them.  I gave them a brochure to visit a US Battleship nearby thinking they would be interested.  Was that ridiculous since they had been at sea for months?  Au revoir!

"MYRTLE BEACH IS LIKE VEGAS ON WATER" My rider from California said this and I told her that we have to go directly to the Myrtle Beach Tourism Office.  I said it was a great line and she should get paid for it.  I also told her that it was such a great line that it had to be in my blog and she's going to be looking for this.

"WHAT HAPPENS IN MYRTLE BEACH, STAYS IN MYRTLE BEACH"  I got the call early on a Sunday morning and found a guy walking near the football stadium.  He may have been up all night.  He said he was trying to walk back to his hotel, but he was in no shape to do so.  Both his knees were bloodied, but he wasn't bleeding.  He had a very nasty cut on one arm and said he had fell.  When he told me he was from Las Vegas, I had to use the above line since it's typically said about Las Vegas.  I have no idea what happened to him, but it will take him awhile to heal the way he looked.

THE KOREAN TEACHER: The history teacher could not get a job in the United States, so for the past ten years she has been teaching in South Korea and enjoying it.  She was in Myrtle Beach for a reunion with teacher friends who are also teaching in other countries. Did you know people do this?

"I'M MORE EXCITED ABOUT YOU SEEING THE MOVIE!": This past Saturday night I took a couple from New Jersey to the movies.  They could not get home due to storms in New Jersey so they decided to see the movie, "Yesterday" which is about the Beatles' music.  I told them I've been waiting for months to see it and was going the next day with my wife.  After giving them some Beatle trivia and info, the man invited me to see the movie with them.  The wife made me laugh when she said, "I'm more excited about you seeing the movie!" I bet I enjoyed the movie more also.

REQUESTING MUSIC: When I drive riders I don't play any music.  It appears that many drivers
have music playing, but I want to be able to talk to my riders.  For tourist coming here, I'm giving them information and for tourists leaving I'm getting information from them on what they did and liked and didn't like.  There's no need to be playing music instead of talking to them- it is much more enjoyable.  I had a rider with family members ask me, "what tunes do you have?"  I asked him what he liked and told him I usually don't play music.  He wanted to hear Lionel Ritchie so I told him I once had two passengers singing, "Easy On A Sunday Morning" on a Sunday morning.  He had already had a few drinks so I told him I could sing my Uber song that I wrote, but when he said yes I decided it wasn't the right time.  I turned on my iPod and he heard a few songs which seemed to be okay.

"BLESS YOUR HEART"  Down here in the South people don't like to curse that much.  If you're having a conversation and someone says, "bless your heart," they are basically saying, "F-U", but in a nice way.  My rider explained this to me and I've heard it before also.

THE MEDIC- He is the first one in his family to go to college and he works as medic in Charleston on the road with one other person.  His schedule is: working for 24 straight hours and then 48 hours off and 24 hours on and 48 hours off.  Ultimately he is planning on being an anestisiologist and expects his starting salary to be $170,000 in a hospital.

THE PERSISTENT COLLEGE FINANCE STUDENT-He was from Long Island and he was in his final year at Ohio State University.  He was disappointed to find out that financial companies in New York did not recruit out in Ohio since many of the students would want to work in the mid-west.  He decided to contact hundreds of people working in Finance in New York and ask them if he could talk to them about their career.  Most people did not respond, but he was usually able to set-up one call a day and eventually led to him being hired in New York City last year.  I congratulated him for his persistence and told him that most students would not do that.  He already knew that because he has been contacted by many students and most of them showed no interest in doing what he did to get his dream job.

"THANK YOU-YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT AUDIENCE"  I was on a roll entertaining two women with my stories and when I finished I acted as if I was on stage and they got a good laugh out of that line.

SAVING RIDERS MONEY"  I picked up a guy in North Myrtle Beach who was going to the Myrtle Beach Airport to rent a car for the day.  It was a great ride 35 minutes away, but I cut it short by 5-10 minutes.  I told him that if he tried another place not near the airport it might be cheaper and he saved $40-$50.  He said his wife was turning 50 tomorrow and didn't want a party so she said she wanted to go away for the weekend.  They were going out to dinner and I told him to talk to the owner or manager and see if he can get everyone in the restaurant to sing Happy Birthday when they come in.  He liked the idea and gave me a $9 tip for my efforts.

"I PROMISED I WOULDN'T KEEP LOOKING AT MY WATCH AND JUST ENJOY MYSELF"  She was a busy person and was always pressed for time.  Our ride was no different since she thought her plane was an hour later.  I got her to the airport 20 minutes before her flight and I'll never know if she made it or not.  She was a third year medical student and a part-time dance teacher and I'm guessing she will be watching the clock even more now.

A WOMAN'S UNDERWEAR: If I made a list of 500 things I might write about, this would not be one of them.  All rides do not go well and this one was a problem.  I picked up a woman with two 10-year old boys and her Mom.  They were moving some things from one living place to another and had a large laundry basket I guess with dirty laundry?  They were all very nice, but where I pulled up in front their house was all dirt. Guess what wound up in my car? My mats were a mess.  After unloading everything I didn't notice the underwear until I got home.  What do you do with a woman's underwear when it's not your wife's?  I threw it in the garbage in the garage and then covered it up. Then, I decided I had to tell my wife, because somehow she would find it.  I told her I was driving a bunch of girls to The Country Music Festival and one of the girls thought it would be funny to leave me with something.  I tried, but could not keep a straight face.  I told her the truth-I like to wear them once in awhile.(ha ha)

"ALCOHOL IS NOT PART OF THE CURRICULUM": I picked up two guys who had already had a few drinks.  The engineer said that he was the only "cool" one in his department, because he knew how to have fun and everyone else were nerds.  The Department Chair at a college talked about how there are a number of his faculty he would like to fire because they were too easy on their students.  He explained that his department's main responsibility was to get people healthy.  I couldn't resist and said, "with alcohol"? The engineer started laughing and said, "he's roasting us."  I replied, "why should you guys be the only one to have fun tonight?"  Then the department head, who was amused also, said, "alcohol is okay for this week, but it's not part of our curriculum."

"THE SURPRISE WASN'T THE SURPRISE PARTY" The guy I picked up was upset and a little stunned at how his day had gone.  He had worked with several people to throw a surprise party for a friend that was attended by 100 people.  Everything went perfectly until he went to change his shirt and got a call that his girlfriend was thrown out of the restaurant/bar for yelling at the owner.  She had been drinking a lot and does not hold alcohol well.  He went to take her home in his car and somehow before they left she got the keys and locked the doors with herself in the car.  She drove away, completely drunk.  A friend called her and she refused to pull over.  She got to her parents house and was followed by a police car and they arrested her for DWI.  I took him to get his car and his girlfriend was going to jail for the night.  He missed most of the party.

THE ULTIMATUM: The couple worked together, she owned the spa and he worked for her doing all her marketing.  When I asked how long they've been married, the guy said, "not yet, I have an ultimatum for December 31st, but I may wait until the last minute."  When I dropped them off I said to him, "don't forget what you have to do before the end of the year."