Here's the story of my weirdest/craziest ride:
About a year in to driving, I get a call to a dingy motel in the middle of town. I had seen this place a million times, since it is right off the highway, but never had a pickup there, despite having about 2500 to 3000 rides by this point. This ride was on Lyft, but the rider did not have a picture on his profile, so I was unable to see what the person looked like that I was picking up.
After about a minute, a older guy, somewhere between 50 and 60 climbs in the car and sits up front. He's probably about 6'4", 250 pounds and dressed head to toe in army fatigues. Definitely an interesting outfit for any time of day or location, but especially on a hot summer night.
"Hey, Steven, how ya doin tonight? Where are we headed?"
"I don't know, where ARE we headed tonight?"
Now, that's usually a bad sign if someone is being serious, because it means that they are not my passenger, or they are too drunk/high to know where they are intending to go. This made me uneasy from the start.
"Hmm, looks like the trip says the Candelight Bar. Is that right?"
"Sounds good to me, let's go."
The bar was just about 1.5 miles away, so while I was disappointed money-wise that this was going to be a short ride, this dude was giving off weird vibes, so I was glad to get him out of my car ASAP.
Within about 15 seconds of pulling out of the parking lot, he starts rubbing his temples with a bit of a grimace on his face, moaning"
"What's the matter, not feeling well?"
"Yeah, I'm sick."
"Oh, dang, man I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, it's all these bacterias inside me...and they are eating away at the pleasure core of my brain."
"Ohhhh, man, that's crazy. How'd that happen?"
"When I was in Vietnam, Prince Charles and his secret girlfriend ground up Chuck Hagel, turned him into powder and injected him right up my asshole."
"Wow, that's nuts."
"Now, I have to rub P-23 all over my body, including inside of my cockhole every day or it'll eat my brain away."
"What's P-23?"
"Pure Flouride. It's the only thing that works for what I've got"
At this point, I have slid to be as much to the left on my driver's seat away from this guy as possible. I am cognizant that he is either high on some terrible drug or a paranoid schizophrenic. I have worked in healthcare, and partially with schizophrenics enough to know that most are incredibly harmless and grounded when they are on anti-psychotics and are going through counseling/have a support structure. This guy clearly did not check any of those "safety" boxes to me.
I am relieved that at this point, I am a half mile away from his destination.
But then, almost at the exact time he is going into how he has been injected with unknown substances by shadowy government and royal figures of all types, he whispers under his breath that he would actually like to go to the ER instead.
"I'm sorry, did you say you want to go to the ER???"
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."
"Sounds good to me, let's get you to the hospital"
So, I head onto the highway towards a hospital about 3 miles northeast of where we were at. He continues to ramble on about conspiracy theories involving himself and the US government. He is angry and bitter, and he smells like stale cigarettes and sweat. It's nauseating and my stomach is already in knots since he seems unstable and unreasonable. Just as I am about to make the final turn into the hospital to the ER, he whispers again that he wants to go to a different ER, since they had saved his life before and would be the only ones to know how to do it again.
Of course, being the world's most accommodating Uber/Lyft driver, I agree.
Back onto the highway, this hospital being another 3 miles northeast of the first one. As I get on the highway, I look over and notice that he has unzipped his pants and has produced a bottle of lotion from his pocket. He squirts a large amount and starts rubbing his hands together. I figure I am just about to witness an old dude in army fatigues furiously masturbate in the front seat of my car, but thankfully (and strangely), he instead puts the cap on the bottle and puts it down the waistband of his underwear, zips his pants back up and goes back to regaling me with more stories.
We finally pull into the hospital ER and I pull right by the door, but Steven is not moving.
"Hey man, we're here. They'll definitely help you out man. Just head right inside."
He still doesn't budge for what feels like minutes, but is assuredly only a few seconds.
He finally opens the door, steps his feet out and stands up in the V between the open door and the car, but just stands there, unmoving, kind of slumped looking down. I waited 15 seconds or so and he still stood there, so at this point, I had enough, was sufficiently flashed full of adrenaline and fear and so I just inched my car forward until I could reach the door handle from the inside, yanked it shut and drove off.
I called the Hospital's ER department to let them know of the presumable future patient in their drop-off zone and took off.
It doesn't sound so scary reading the story 2 years later, but I was freaked the hell out the entire time. In all my thousands and thousands of rides, many of which are down dark dead-end alleys at 2:00 in the morning in rough areas of town, or out in the middle of nowhere, I have never felt so incredibly freaked out like I did with this dude. I ended my night after that ride and told myself I'd never pick up at that motel ever again, just in case.
Another crazy ride about 2 months in to driving I picked up outside of a gay bar known for it's super fun drag shows. There was a super tall, super buff masculine person in a mini-skirt and corset outside talking to other patrons.
Evan, the rider, gets in the car, and I say, "Wow, did you see him? That's a pretty impressive outfit!"
"Oh yeah, that's Sam. He's great right? I dress up sometimes, too, but I play a character named Bitzy"
"That's cool, I've heard they have pretty good drag shows in there. So you walk the catwalk and everything?"
"Yeah, and I love it! but I wasn't performing tonight, just drinkin... and (sighs) now I gotta go home to my roommate..."
"Haha, why do you say, "gotta go?" Is he pretty lame or something?"
"No, he's actually really nice, but I love sucking dick and he pierced the end of his and it ended up bifurcating like a snake's tongue. Like I said, I love sucking dick, but his is just gross to look at.
"Damn! I've seen pictures of bifurcated dicks online and it does look pretty horrible. Gotta be one of those situations where you say to yourself, "I immediately regret this decision!"
"Yeah, he still keeps a big ring in it, too, and it's just nasty!"
"Yikes."
"I bet you got a BIG ol' dick, though, don't you?"
I laugh at this comment, since you could tell he was trying to both get a rise out of me, and see if I was interested.
"Yep, at least that's what my wife tells me"
"Well, why don't you pull it out and show it to me?"
"Yeah, no thanks. I'm married and I don't think my wife would appreciate that"
"I won't tell her. I'd love to suck your dick."
"She definitely wouldn't appreciate that, and I'm straight man, so not interested."
"I've sucked lots of Uber drivers dicks and they all say they're straight."
"That's cool for them, but I actually mean it, plus the whole not cheating on my wife thing. Not interested."
He goes on and on about the various dicks he's sucked and how I should just pull over, etc. I am starting to get very agitated because it went from being jokes and even an open invitation, which is fine, to persistent nagging and crude comments, which is sexual harassment.
At the end of the ride, I said,
"Is this your house here on the right?"
"Yeah, but there is actually a parking lot at the end of the street, why don't you pull in there and I'll take care of you really quick?"
"Ride's up, man, time to get out."
I definitely reported Evan to Lyft. I'm not sure if they got kicked off the platform or not, I never received word one way or the other.
