Uber Technologies Inc., or Uber for short, is an online transportation network based in San Francisco, California. Most college students know it as the ever-so-convenient method for getting home – both on the weekends when we need to be brought back from a night on the town to the comfort of seeing the Cathedral in the distance and when laziness compels us to stray from making the trek home from the library during the week.
After a night out a few weeks ago, one of my best friends, Gabby, wasn’t feeling up to the task of walking back to her residence hall…or standing at all, for that matter. After an hour or so of sitting, pep talking, and downing several glasses of water, she said she was ready to go home. Now, her residence hall was several blocks away, but we had another friend, Lauren, that lived just down the street, so naturally, the three of us called an Uber to drive us the .2 miles into the depths of South Oakland.
When we got to Lauren’s house and got Gabby situated in bed, Lauren made a comment about how she was going to plug in Gabby’s phone to charge. Well… I heard the “ping” of a phone being plugged in, looked down, and instantly realized that I was holding two phones in my hand – mine and Sleeping Beauty’s. I looked over, as my eyes began to widen, and realized that Lauren had her own phone in her hand, too.
So, you do the math.
Three gals, four phones, and one Uber ride gone wrong.
As it turns out, Lauren thought that Gabby had set her phone down in the car, while in reality it was in her purse (that I had) the entire time. Now, there were several missed calls and texts on the mysterious fourth phone, and after talking to one of the very angry callers, we found out that the guy’s girlfriend left her phone in the car, and he was very eager to pick it up. He showed up less than five minutes later, and as creepy and sketchy as he and his elderly personal driver were, we were relieved to have it out of our hands.
And don’t worry, Gabby slept right through it all.
I couldn’t imagine that I was the only one that has had a memorable Uber experience, so here are some of my favorite Uber stories from other Pitt students:
“One time I was in an Uber on the way home from Southside, and there was a cage in the middle of the Uber with a dog in it. My friends and I were obviously very excited about it and asked if we could play with the dog, and the Uber driver was super chill and opened the cage. We had a cute little dog playing with us for the rest of the ride.” – Melodi
“One day I had this older driver named John who looked really familiar, but I couldn’t quite place why. Then he started talking, and his voice sounded super familiar too. He started asking me a bunch of personal questions, and when I told him I was a psych major he said, “Oh, you could help me. I have a lot of problems.” The whole thing was just really odd. Then it hit me – this guy was basically Jigsaw from the Saw movies. He looked and sounded just like him…and Jigsaw’s real name was John Kramer, so I immediately came to the conclusion that I was going to be murdered. When he dropped me off, I triple locked our front door and then cried internally.” – Hannah
“I had one Uber driver that looked like Lisa Kudrow from Friends. And since you can assume my state considering it was Orientation Week, I told her that many, many times during the ride. And then I found out she was actually kind of high up in one of Pitt’s departments. Oops.” – Olivia
“I gave my driver a drunk (Pathfinder) bus tour only to find out he used to drive for Pitt and already knew all the facts.” – Colin
“One driver told me in detail about how he is writing a book about ‘living life on the road,’ and then he offered me a cigarette.” – Barbara
“My last Uber driver told me that during Halloween two girls requested a ride and got in wearing no clothes. They were going as nudists.” – Mark
“Once I was in an Uber to Peter’s Pub, and we asked our driver to take a Panther Bomb with us. She said she would come back later and had me write my number down on her Adele album cover because she didn’t have any paper.” – Kara
“I took an Uber in D.C. and we were in the Washington Circle, and he couldn’t figure out how to turn his turn signal on in his rental car because he wrecked his first one (very reassuring). While that was happening, a bus was slowly moving closer and closer to us, and eventually we got pinched between a Megabus and the monument. By the way, he wrecked his first rental, too.” – Chad
“I puked in an Uber and had to pay $100.” – Charlie
“My roommates and I once took what the driver called the ‘Super Uber,’ which was very similar to the Cash Cab. We got to pick categories, and our driver would ask us trivia questions that he just knew off the top of his head. For every question we got right, he gave us Cow Tales (those weird caramel cream candy things) and we got to pick a new category. We got to Southside and had, like, 50 caramels in our pockets. It was the best Uber I’ve ever been in.” – Jenna
“We took an Uber XL, and I sat in the front seat. Our driver didn’t speak much English, but I asked him if he had an aux cord. He gave it to me, and I blasted The Life of Pablo the whole way there, and he was so confused. Then this past weekend I just so happened to have the same driver, and he remembered me and handed me the aux cord and was jamming to TLOP with me, so that was cool, and I think I changed his life.” – Molly
All in all, Uber: a personal entertainment unit on wheels.