The Spirit Of The Universe Doesn't Tip

Trip length: 18 minutes. Trip distance: 12 miles.

Fare: $13.07  Year: 2018.

Song of the trip: “Ramblin' Man” by Lemon Jelly

I'd just dropped someone off at Oracle at 10:30 p.m. on a Friday, which meant I was on the border of Redwood City and Foster City, and I figured that no one would possibly call for a ride out there, so I was about to make my way back over to 101 when the phone pings and tells me there's a request only 5 minutes away. I figure why not, so I tap accept and see the request is northeast of me, to my surprise.

Foster City, for those of you not in the Bay Area, is definitively not cheap. A one-bedroom apartment out there can run you three grand a month, easy. It's not an area we get called into that much, at least not us common UberX drivers.

See, Uber offers a variety of levels when it comes to service. You have UberX, which is any ol' Tom, Dick or Harry who's driving for them, and makes up the majority of the fleet. Then you have UberXL, which are the monster behemoth SUVs and urban assault vehicles that can hold a lot more people and cargo, but also cost quite a bit more (which is good, because those things consume gas like nobody's business). There's UberPool, which is like UberX, except that you can only have a couple of passengers, and your fare can get split with other people along the way. There's even a subsection of UberPool they're trying called UberPool Express, which requires passengers to walk to a corner, something that a number of passengers have refused to do, or complained about. The last option is UberBlack, which is reserved for high-end cars, Mercedes, Teslas, BMWs and the like, and they also charge more.

So normally the calls out here are for UberBlack cars, because the people who can afford Foster City want only the finest for their rich asses, but sure enough, sometimes people get impatient and will just take any old car they can get.

The name on the call is Delores, and I'm driving all the way out to the waterfront to pick her up, an apartment or condo complex that's right against the Bay. When I pull in front of the address, a man in his late sixties is walking a woman of about the same age over to the car. She opens the back door and moves to slide in, closing the door behind her, and it's clear, she's a little bit tipsy.

"Are you Billy? My driver?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Well, Billy, I am rather drunk, so you will have to excuse me if I ramble a bit."

"That's fine, ma'am." 

"So how has your evening been tonight, Billy?" she says as I start to back up slowly, carefully trying to maneuver through the narrow driveways.

"Relatively quiet. My last fare was taking someone into work."

"This time of night?"

"Something had gone wrong, and he'd had a few drinks in him, so he wasn't safe to drive, but he still needed to go into the office. That's certainly dedication."

"It all sounds a little materialistic for my liking, but I suppose who am I to judge? I am trying a new philosophy these days, saying yes to everything. I've started following the teachings of Abraham Hicks."

Now, I've got a buddy who drives for Uber named Cliff Hicks, but Abraham Hicks? That's a new one on me. "Oh yeah? What's the core of it?"

"This woman named Esther communicates with an infinite intelligence, a sort of group consciousness that's ascended beyond physical forms, and they offer her wisdom and guidance, which she passes on others."

I tense a little bit, but I force myself to relax. The whole thing sounds very cult-y. "I'm not sure I could get behind that," I say, evasively, trying not to engage much.

"Oh, are you a Christian? I find that Abraham-Hicks doesn't negate my Christian faith at all."

"No, ma'am. I'm a deist."

"I'm not familiar with that."

"Deism believes that there is a transcendental creation force, but that it is completely non-interventionist. It doesn't speak to us, it doesn't guide us, hell, it probably doesn't even know we exist as anything more than specks. It would be like asking you if you've named every individual bacterium in your body."

"That seems very depressing."

"Only if you're looking for some form of outside of guidance. I prefer to believe that I am the driving force in my life, and all the victories are of my own devising." Also, I think to myself, that every horrible decision I've made that's led to me discussing religion with a woman who believes in 'guiding forces' is my own damn fault. So if there is a God, maybe they've chosen to punish me. Thankfully, I don't believe that.

"Abraham-Hicks says that all desire can be fulfilled, and that the universe loves us, and wants to help us through everything, for we are eternal and ever-lasting. We as individuals decide upon a focus, and the universe helps us to achieve everything we are capable of in that focus. We all create, all the time, putting things out into the universe that exist beyond ourselves, but are always a part of who we are. We simply need to vibrate at the proper frequency to achieve our dreams, which are, in essence, just expressions of our true selves."

She drones on for several more minutes, but I've tuned her out after the first minute, because the whole thing seems wildly impractical and, let's be honest, useless in any form of application. When she tells me that she has never really had to work much in her life, living off her inheritance in comfort no matter where she lived, much of it falls into place. Her droning fades back in as I realize she's asking me a question, and she repeats it thankfully. "I said, you must truly love driving to do this for a living."

"I used to enjoy driving quite a bit, but to be honest, I'd rather get back to being a writer for a living, because even on the worst days, it was something I enjoyed doing. It's like that old expression, 'do what you love and you never work a day in your life.'"

"That's very good. Let me write that down."

When I pull up in front of the woman's house, I can see that it's nestled in the Los Altos Hills, and not only is her house rather well off, there's a wall around it, with a remote gate at the driveway. "You can just let me out here. I'll open the gate and walk in from here. I hope you find enlightenment and happiness, and that the spirit of the universe brings you whatever it is you desire."

She closes the door and I end the fare. I think to myself that the universe hasn't brought me wisdom, wealth and the love of a wonderful woman yet, so I don't anticipate it'll do so any time soon. Of course, it's several minutes before I get another call, so I'm able to see that the woman hasn't even left a tip. 

The spirit of the universe my ass.

I've desired to be comfortably wealthy my whole life, and look where that's gotten me...