MY FIVE FAVORITE RIDERS FROM 2023

One last look at 2023. I thought I would re-post five rides that made my day and my year. It was not easy picking only five out of over 2,600 rides.  Only the "Comedic Physicist" made my book, but I wrote a short intro for each one of these below:

INTRO: The couple was perfectly matched and had the most unusual beginning a couple can have.  I love picking up people from Minnesota and they were funny, interesting and a joy to drive.

                             "WE MET GOING THROUGH 

                             A WINDSHIELD TOGETHER"  

It wasn't 100% accurate, but it was very close.  The couple from Minnesota married close to thirty years, made my day.  I asked them my standard question to couples who have been married a long time, "What is the secret of a successful marriage?" His answer was hilarious and her answer may have been the best serious answer I've ever heard. He is a welder and once when he was young told a priest that the most important thing in a marriage is, "Not going to Church and having a lot of sex."  She's a nurse and she said the secret was, "Seven words, please, thank you, I love you, and I'm sorry."

The two of them were riding in the front seat of a vehicle driven by a mutual friend who he wanted to date. According to him, the woman crashed into a wall sending he and his future wife through the windshield and back inside the car.  His future wife broke her neck and had two surgeries and he came out fine and went on vacation in Mexico. They started dating sometime afterwards.

He was one of the most enthusiastic and outgoing people I've ever met.  He told me, "I love life, people are awesome." I wish this ride was fifteen minutes longer.  He was having as much fun as I was.  As he got out of the car he was telling me that their daughter tattooed their wedding anniversary date on him so he would remember it.  However, he said he wanted it there, because his wife didn't like it.  The end of the story was that he pulled up his shirt and showed me the tattoo on his upper chest.  He said he was a really good welder, but he could have been a comic who had an unlimited amount of stories.

                                            

INTRO: She was extraordinary.  An ambitious and creative entrepreneur and a mother to three girls. Her enthusiasm for life was absolutely delightful.  By giving me her mannequin she gave me and many other riders a good laugh and I've had many rides that we have actually talked about their mannequin.    I'm sure that she knew it would be a lot of fun. Without a doubt, one of the best rides I'll ever have.

                                          AND THEN THERE'S THAT!

When you have a great, great ride, you don't want it to end.  And then, at the end of the ride, there is just one more thing which puts the icing on the cake.  My rider was from the great state of Kansas. (where I love their wind turbines.)  She had just been in an accident in another Uber who was side swapped.  Everyone seemed to be okay, but she needed another ride which turned into a fifty-nine minute extravaganza.

Having just taught some hair styling, the salon owner entered my car with a suitcase a couple bags and a pole with the above mannequin and a male mannequin head.  My rider's initials are JK and at the end of the ride she thanked me, "For turning her night around." She was my 80th ride in three days and she will be remembered as long as I am driving.

One paragraph cannot explain this successful, entertaining, inspirational woman. She runs at least four businesses, two which are a salon/coffeeshop in the same building with have separate entrances, but are joined together. A boutique and an event center are the other two businesses and last year she did make-up and hair for 190 weddings. She talks fast, works hard, and obviously loves what she does.  She regularly uses social media and does videos on what she's doing which she calls, "Jen Live." She interviewed and recorded me for several minutes about the ride and the things in my car. She has three girls who are growing up with an incredible role model. (One daughter, who was wearing a mask in kindergarten during COVID, also wore lipstick to school.)

When we reached her destination, she handed me the above head, whose name is Lily. She said, "I want you to have this to display in your museum." She signed it and wrote, "And then there's that," her favorite saying. We took some pictures together and I walked towards the car holding this head and a guy walking on the sidewalk gave me the strangest look.  I couldn't stop laughing.  Two years ago, another woman from Kansas, pulled out her Super Bowl ring and the picture of that ring has entertained thousands of riders.  Will history repeat itself! Thank you JK., I'll take care of Lily for you.    

                                               

INTRO: I'm not sure I could have driven her an hour as I did JK.  She was very successful in sales and it was clearly due to her personality and sense of humor.  One of the most unique passengers I've ever had the pleasure to drive and she was truly unforgettable.

                             THE VALLEY GIRL FROM MICHIGAN

I thought I was going to cheer her up and make her day better, but it turned out that she was easily my best ride of the weekend.  I found her sitting on a bench in front of her hotel.  She had had a rough night.  She had been meeting a girlfriend she hadn't seen in ten years, but their airbnb reservation near the beach was canceled. Her friend got mad at her last night and wouldn't let her stay in the hotel room so she slept in the lobby of the hotel.

She is very successful in selling alarm systems on the phone and explained, "I beat out all 18 men who sell in the field and I've won two trips to Hawaii and one to Mexico." The secret to her success is her personality, from her voice to her infectious laugh. She said, "They call me a Valley Girl and think I come from California." Her name is Trisha, but one guy couldn't understand her, so she says, "Pippa is my stage name." I threatened to record her laugh and play it for other riders when they don't laugh at something I say and that just made her laugh more.

I brought her to a hotel on the beach, but we were both laughing even when she got out of the car. She told me that a week before her honeymoon, she told her husband, "You're too hairy." Straight from a scene from the movie, "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with Steve Carrell, she tortured her husband by removing his hair and making his nipples bleed and him cry. She has never seen the movie and I told her that it was her homework.  Will I remember her? She told me that people say, "I look like Elaine from Seinfeld and I dance like her too." And, she has an unforgettable laugh.

   

INTRO:  I apologized to him at the end of the ride that I wouldn't be able to put him in my book since I just finished it.  He said, "Put me in your next book." After reviewing the ride I had to force his ride into my book.  I should have given him an award when I dropped him off, he was that great.                             

              WHO KNEW THAT PHYSICS WAS FUNNY?

It was another terrific ride from the airport. My rider said he was in physics and he spent twenty years fixing nuclear cameras. What he does now is different, but since I didn't do well in Physics class forty years ago, I don't really know. I only have a few words to explain it: atomic particles and radioactive isotopes.  I don't know his job title, but I'm going to say he is a Comedic Physicist. (He may be the only one and I'm sure he'll love his new title.)

It was clear immediately that he was not just some intelligent scientist with no personality. His performance in my car should have been filmed.  He did tell me he's never performed in front of people, but explained, "When I drive in an Uber, I figure if I make them laugh, they won't hit me." His education was different, because his dad wanted two kids and he had five. "There was no money for me for college, so I borrowed $5,000 from a bank" and he had his uncle co-sign for it. He went to an electronics school for two years and said, "You can get a good education without going to college." Whatever his job is, he does make a six figure salary.

At the age of 62, he has two adult children around 40 years old. He said, "My wife kissed a lot of toads before she found her prince. I married the first girl I kissed-I didn't think it would happen again. On our honeymoon, my wife's antibiotics messed up our family planning." And to top it off-he's been married 42 years.

Here's a few more of his greatest bits: "My dad taught me all about physics in how he disciplined. His hands were as big as dinner plates and his fingers were like sausages." "I thought it was odd that my grandparents in Kentucky were first cousins also, until I realized that in Kentucky the only options you have are cows, corn, coal and cousins."  "My dad never told me about the four rings of marriage, the telephone ring, the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering."

I didn't want to end the ride and I'm sure he enjoyed me laughing at everything.  He said, "The ride is on a company account, so if you want to take a few left turns you can." I think he could talk about anything and make it funny, even physics.

INTRO: I have told her story and her friend's story many times in the last few months since meeting her. A role model for anyone and she had a great personality also.  I'll talk about her and her friend for a very long time, you don't get to meet and talk to people like her very often.

                            A GOAL SETTER EXTRAORDINAIRRE

My ride with the woman who lives in Charleston, South Carolina was terrific immediately. She was delightful and had a wonderful laugh that I heard for most of the ride.  After graduating with a journalism degree in communications, she found out pretty quickly that the money was not what she wanted to make.  She switched over to the telecommunications industry and had a very successful career in it. Her main goal her whole career was to retire early and start the career she really wanted-to be an artist.

Retiring in her early fifties, she spent three years training to be a painter and she succeeded.  She told me, "An encore career is the best career, because it's the one you really want." She's a fast painter and keeps two galleries stocked with paintings and she also travels around the country doing art exhibits. She's just a regular person with extraordinary determination, skill, and a very fun personality.

I didn't want to drop her off at the airport when she told me about one of her oldest friends. Her story is inspiration for everyone and her friend's story is just absolutely amazing. Her friend was a successful dentist for 37 years and decided she wanted to be a lawyer.  After getting her law degree, this woman who is five feet tall and maybe 95 pounds, takes clients who have been wronged by dentists. When she puts a dentist on the stand, she becomes her own expert witness and dentists can't defend themselves.  In her spare time her friend hunts alligators, skins them, and has a house full alligator-made things.  My rider showed me a picture of the two of them and another friend in front of a twelve foot alligator on her wall. My rider said of her friend, "She is not someone to play with."

I joked with her that I was disappointed she was in my car instead of her friend, and got a huge laugh out of her. In five years I've had about 60-70 truly great rides and this was one of them.