There was a time in my college career I became a rideshare driver. The app I worked for is known for it’s pink mustaches.

The other rideshare app gave me nothing but problems both as a customer and a driver. I quit doing the other rideshare app because every ride past 8pm turned into weed deals. A person would have to be literally born yesterday to not know that they were participating in a drug deal. The procedure looked like me picking someone up from their house, taking them to an ATM, taking them to the projects, then taking them back home.

Don’t get me wrong, the pink mustache platform had its fair share of sketchy rides, but not nearly as many as the other rideshare app that rhymes with goober. One time, as a customer, I was riding one of their bikes which charged like 25 cents a minute. I got a $60 bill from that bike ride, because their lock fucked up. I disputed the charges, but they did not want to give me my money back for a mile long bike ride. I pushed back hard on them, and they gave me my money back but then deactivated my account.

Joke’s on them I have more cards and more emails.

I write this now with confidence I won’t be continuing my business with them.

As of now, I have given 695 rides on the pink mustache app that rhymes with ‘rift’ and I’ve given probably 100 or so on the other app. I will only be focusing on the pink mustache rides from here on out.

The popular story I tell is when the app had me drive 360 miles north to to drop off a passenger. The app does not tell me where the passenger is going until they get in the car, which creates an awkward situation if I don’t agree with the destination. I saw the price on the ride was likely to be high, and the man said he would tip me. It was a Sunday and I was a new driver, so I agreed to take the ride.

I pulled up to this house in a sketchy part of town, and two people greeted me. One was a gentleman with tattoos on his face smoking a blunt, and the other was a young girl wearing braces. The gentleman with tattoos was the one who called the ride, but he did not get in the car.

I was to take the girl on this ride. She was very polite throughout the ride, but spent most of it watching Tiktoks and on facetime in the back seat. I took her to Buc-ee’s (because we had to stop somewhere) and she was floored by the consumer culture.

I definitely was transporting drugs across state lines and she said she was 19, so at least the charges would have stopped there. She also said this was not the first time they’ve called a long ride like this, and they usually get the same driver every time. She said it was nice to have a change. I made it to the destination, made about $240 off of it with no tip.

I was mad.

Instead of driving the 5 hours back home, I have friends in that state who let me stay with them. I spent the next day driving around that city until I made as much as I felt the man should have tipped me. All in all, for two days of work and $240, it was not worth it.

However, when a driver takes such a journey the algorithm of the app thinks, “Oh wow, this guy must like long car rides” and proceeded to give me several more long rides throughout my time driving for them.

Before I continue I want to add the postscript to this story. One day I’m driving, and I get a notification for a pickup and it’s the same guy’s name from the Ohio trip. It was an airport pickup, and as much as I wanted to say “fuck this guy.” I wanted to say it to his face even more.

I accept it, and go to the airport waiting for this face tatted dude but that’s not who got in the car.

It wasn’t the girl either.

It was a whole nother ass dude.

This other dude gets in the car, and I made it about halfway through the car ride before I said, “Okay what’s the fucking deal with this guy?” Obviously, dude’s a drug dealer, I didn’t need that explicitly told to me.  Apparently he’s the only one in the group who hasn’t been banned from the rideshare platforms and maybe the only one with a credit card? It got funnier because this dude in the car gives me his number, and then periodically sends me (still to this day) pictures of weed and a menu of prices for the weed.

I believe I unmatched after the ride because that’s too much involvement in their narrative for me. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here.

Long ride #2 was about 112 miles south and still in the same state. I picked this dude up from a rehab center and he said he was running away. He was trying to get clean but he was not about all the feeling his feelings business. So I pull up and he’s shoving garbage bags of clothes in my backseat in a hurry, and he gets in frantically while I pull away.

As conversation commences I find out he’s some big time drug dealer in this other city I’m taking him to and this is his big return. Only it’s not big it’s a silent sneaky return. Not much else was said, I took him to a seedy motel and wished him luck.

Only problem was I was on the clock at my security job the whole time I did this ride, because again I was hoodwinked into picking somebody up for a much longer ride than I bargained for.

I’ve had a couple other rides to that city but they were really vanilla.

I had one ride to the capital city of our state which is about a 3 hour ride some odd 200 miles west. The passenger was talkative, and she was going to some anime podcast convention. I don’t mind talkers, but she was a little on the boring side in my opinion. I do enjoy rides out to the capital city because it’s significantly larger than the one I live in, which means I can make in an hour what I make in a whole day.

That day, a tornado happened to hit and I was driving student from a prestigious university to the airport. She panicked the whole ride.

I believe I was also on the clock at the other job before I got back to town.

I know, incorrigible.

One of the worst rides involved a local family taking a vacation. This guy filled my car with his family and every other ounce of space was full of trash bags that held their belongings. My car smelled like a cat died in it and someone covered it in pee soaked sawdust while I drove them 50 miles up a mountain. They were basically illiterate and could not help me find their cabin. That was one of the extreme cases of me wanting to never do this job ever again.

One day I picked up this guy who needed to go to this medical appointment because he was on workers’ comp, and if he missed it they’d take him to court.

The problem was this happened on the day of the worst tornado that we’ve seen to date in this neck of the woods. I could not see five feet in front of me, and being from a tropical state known for hurricanes, I’ve driven in this weather before but it’s not ideal.

Street signs were spinning, traffic lights were swaying, trees falling down and I drove maybe 20 mph for the majority of the ride. We got lucky when the eye of the storm hit there was a couch in the middle of the road that we would have never seen if the weather hadn’t cleared. That was another time I was about questioning my choice to continue driving.

I picked up this one dude and he was new in town and kind of lonely so he invited me to see a concert with him, I flipped a coin and said yes. He was buying me drinks left and right, and this guy was desperately trying to get laid. I had no interest in such things, and after he struck out once and was on strikeout number 2, I ditched him. I wasn’t feeling the wingman role, and I was already pretty trashed. There went my fares for the night.

One time I picked these guys up from a strip club and took them strip club hopping (that’s when you go from strip club to strip club, our town only has 3 strip clubs). The man gave me $100 for putting up with their drunken antics. That was some of the easiest money I’ve ever made.

It’s funny to watch how people behave when they’re on vacation or on work trips.

The last story I’ll share was from a more recent ride, and has made me very hesitant to continue this job.

I picked up these two women, one was very attractive and charming. Before getting in my car, she said she’s waiting on her friend. Her friend walks up and the first thing she says to me is “let me lick your ear.” She was eating a slice of pizza and she pushed it in my face trying to get me to take a bite. She then gets in the back seat and acts about as belligerent as she possibly could. When I got through to her that I’m not trying to fight her, I’m trying to be nice and she’s starting shit with me, she then started whispering a bunch of filthy sexual shit in my ear. We get to their hotel, and she then takes off her pants and pushes my head into her ass. She asks me how her pussy smelled, they get out and I haven’t seen them since. They’re pilots based out of Wisconsin?

Fuckin’ gave me flashbacks to the bike job.

No dignity. No respect. I can still see her throbbing asshole.

Financially I feel the gig economy profits off of the desperation of the working class. I need money and in theory there is nothing wrong with doing this stuff, but the details of what I have to go through and the internal cost of aiding and abetting this immorality does wear at me. It’s a conflict.

Note: Upon completion of this passage I wanted to add a section about all of the prostitutes who I had to give rides to.

Most prostitutes I picked up were all staying at the same motel, which I would have never known existed otherwise. Many of them were high upon entering my vehicle and it led to some funny first impressions. I never directly asked the women out of respect, but it was another situation in which one would have to be out of their minds to not know. The one I’ll never forget was this 200 lb boisterous woman coming into my backseat completely zooted off adderal. She’s trailing on and off about how she’s the shit from Detroit, so she’s hot shit but she wants to make that real money. She was around 50 years old and had two kids. I asked her how long she anticipated she would stay in the business and she was ready to do this until retirement age. I take her to a different hotel, she offers to pay me extra if I wait for her and drive her back. “Twenty minutes tops. I’m that good.” She says.

I, being a bit of a whore myself, agreed. I went to the gas station, filled my tank, got a clif bar, and by the time I got back she was waddling up. 17 minutes. I was impressed. She hands me a wrinkly $20 which I felt a bit gross accepting given the circumstances.

As I drove her home she tries to create a scenario in which I become her chauffeur. I drive her to the capital city, she puts us up in a hotel, and sets up all her work which I drive her from place to place. When I gave her a quote for the ride to the capital city her response was, “I could get a greyhound bus for less than that.” I said “have fun on the bus.” And blocked her number