Uber Therapy

It's embarrassing how many Ubers I've taken since the app has been introduced. There are the daily Ubers I take home from work and then the occasional ride to run errands or a night out. And then in the winter months, when it's too cold for life outside, I have to admit to taking cabs to and from the gym four days a week. (Yes, I go to the gym four days a week. This is the new and improved me.)

And with each vehicle I've taken comes driven by a new special driver. Sometimes we sit in silence, sometimes we get in a heated conversation long after I've arrived at my destination and sometimes they tell me their whole life story while I sit there nodding, preferring the silence.

I've had one driver share his tale of coming to this country from Egypt five years ago to go to school and falling in love with an American girl who he then married after a long courtship. It had been his new wife who suggested he apply for citizenship and who also then became distant once she decided he had married her for the wrong reasons. He got teary eyed telling me how it tore them apart until they eventually divorced. He was now driving for Uber to save up enough money to bring over his parents.

Then there was the driver who decided that he knew better directions than the passenger who took the same route every day for over a year (me). It has recently snowed and the streets had limited access and increased traffic. We got stuck in a stand-still for 30 minutes which he took as an opportunity to ask me on a date. Nothing worse than being stuck in non-moving traffic with a man you have just rejected.

I've heard every horror story from drunken vomit to domestic abuse in the back seat. It's interesting how much information gets shared in a 15 minute ride with a stranger.

But then there was the time my driver mentioned how he had been released from prison that morning. I don't know if that is something he should have been sharing but it didn't end there. I was lucky enough to hear the whole story of how he ended up there! There was a lot of mumbling and bits of the story that I missed but the part I got was that his girl friend of 4 years had hit him numerous times in the face after a minor dispute and he called the cops on her. She wasn't too thrilled about that and retaliated by calling the cops herself and telling them that he had hit her. He told me how he has spent the night in a holding cell and I tried my best to sympathize.

I'm well aware that I bring these conversations upon myself by being personable and so darn cute but I should really start charging for my services.

New Fridge, New Year, New Life

Anyone who has stepped foot into my house within the past two years has met my fridge. And by "fridge" I mean my actual refrigerator and not some cute little house pet I've named "fridge."

My fridge is one of the more unique fridges in that every time it would re-cool itself (roughly every 20 minutes), it would make a loud rumbling sound similar to the sound of a motorcycle revving its engine (except that "motorcycle" would be in the middle of my kitchen.)

But after a short amount of time, we managed to get used to the noises and it became an almost soothing background sound. Our house guests however, never seemed to get used to it.

The noises made it difficult to hear conversations happening 3 feet away. It turned casual dinner parties into screaming fests. It may have increased the overall tension in the household because we were constantly yelling at each other.

During this time, we had an electrician inspect the fridge and determined that it would cost more to fix it than to replace it. We also has a few cocky friends who decided to disregard that professional opinion and attempted to fix it themselves. They tried stuffing the motor with tin foil, they tried kicking the fridge, all with unsuccessful results because abuse is not the answer.

So we gave up and accept the fridge for who he was.

Until one day, we came up with the most brilliant idea: we would buy a NEW one (which the landlord would obviously pay for).

The new fridge was finally ordered but after three failed delivery attempts, I gave up. This was a sign that we weren't supposed to have a quiet house. (In hindsight, it may have just been a sign to never purchase appliances from The Home Depot).

With our last strand of patience, we attempted the purchase from Best Buy and miracle of miracles, they actually came through. They showed up at the crack of down with a few strong men who had to take the front door off the hinges to make room for the new fridge to come through. They may have also broken a few minor household objects but at least we finally had a brand spankin-new refrigerator.

It's shiny and spacious and everything one could look for in a fridge. They may have installed it with the doors on the wrong side but the silence has finally been restored to my house.

The Husband Next Door

My neighbor asked me to marry him the other day.

Just to give some background, he is a middle-aged man standing a few inches below my eye-level and lives in the basement of the brownstone next door to mine.

I often find him in my front yard raking the leaves or shoveling my snow (which is a little beyond the normal neighborly civil duties, but who would complain about that?). In the warmer summer days he spends an exceptional amount of time outdoors cat-calling (he literally meows/purrs/both), which I assume is his friendly way of saying "hello."

Though all my housemates have equally as frequent encounters with the neighbor, none of us ever managed to find out his name. He's been calling all of us "Queen" for years (we assume because he doesn't know who is who) and we have begun using the same name when referring to him. Being that he is topic of so many discussions, we have all gotten so comfortable with calling him "Queen" that there have been numerous occasions when we have almost called it to his face.

Aside from the typical cat-calling/meowing, he'll often stop me on my way home for a quick chat which usually go something like this:

Queen: Hi, my queen! How are you?
Me: A little tired, how are you?
Queen: I'm better now that I see you! Would you like a massage?
Me: Oh no thank you.
Queen: Are you sure? I can come in your house and give you a massage.
Me: No no, I don't think that will be necessary. But I appreciate the gesture. Gottarunbye.

We've come to the conclusion that he is the creepiest person we know but you can't not love him.

So the other day as I was leaving the house, I got a phone call from a lady name Laura asking if I was still interested in donating my kidney just as I bumped into Queen waiting for me on the sidewalk. He interrupted my kidney donation conversation with a "Can I ask you a question?"

It seemed urgent and important (though now that I think about it, so was my confused conversation with a stranger requesting my kidney that I had completely forgotten I had ever signed up to donate). But being that I was no longer as interested in donating my organs as I apparently had been a few years back, I used this as an excuse to quickly end my call with Laura. "Can you email me this information and I'll think about it?" I asked Laura as Queen patiently waited for his turn to speak.

"Sorry about that. What was your question?"

"Oh. I just wanted to ask you if you would marry me?"

He was as serious as one should be when asking someone to marry them. He had great eye contact but no ring.

This was right about when I started to panic and wished I was still on the phone with the lady who wanted my kidney.

I was not prepared for this and I couldn't come up with a rejection that wouldn't insult him. I stumbled over my words, started mumbling something about marriage not being my thing and then ran. And as I power walked away from him, he kept yelling down the block, "I think it's a really good idea!"

I'm usually better with my responses but I believe the kidney lady threw me off my game. It was too much fluster for me to handle on a Sunday afternoon on my way to brunch.

Next week I'm ordering delivery.

Uber Kidnap

With a new job in the middle of nowhere-Brooklyn comes a new necessary mode of transportation. In this case, that mode of transport would be in the form of daily Ubers. (Because I refuse to take a train to a bus to then walk half a mile to get to work and because my work loves me enough to compensate me for my high maintenance demands).

For those of you who don't know what Uber is, you either live in the suburbs where everyone needs their own car to survive or you live in a 3rd World Country.

But for those of us living within the 5 Boroughs of New York City, Uber is our other half, our soulmate, our best friend.

With the push of a button he picks you up, drops you off and charges everything directly to your credit card. It's the the best for when you have no cash and your flight leaves in an hour and half or when you go for a run without your wallet and then realize you're too lazy to walk home.

Once your Uber is requested, you are assigned a car within a few seconds. And I, like most eager people, watch the little car icon as it drives through the map approaching your pick up location.

You even get a head-shot photo of your driver (so there are no surprises) and the type of car that awaits you.

So then on a random Tuesday at 5pm I went through my usual routine and called for my Uber chauffeur. I glanced over at the soon-arriving vehicle, read that it would be a Toyota Rav-4 and I continued finishing up my work before he would arrive.

As I walked out of the office, I approached the Rav-4 parked right outside. Something felt a little weird about the pick up so as I opened the back door I asked the confused looking driver if he was in fact my Uber. But nope. He wasn't. He was just a confused gentleman who should've been way more alarmed by the fact that a strange female was entering his vehicle.

Turns out my actual non-kidnapper Uber ride was the Rav-4 across the street. He also had a difficult time concealing his smirk as he most likely recalled watching me as I walked into the wrong car before realizing my error. He didn't think that maybe he should have called or sent a warning text like "Hey Maam, That's not your Uber. The car you are entering may actually kidnap you and leave you in a field instead of delivering you to your destination safely."

But no. There was no call or text of that sort. He just watched in amusement as he witnessed a potential kidnapping of an innocent Uber rider.

This is how people get kidnapped in 2015. By willingly walking into vehicles they think are their Ubers. Bribing with candy is so 2010.

Spreading Christmas Cheer One Doughnut At A Time

Christmas is the most over-hyped holiday of all time. Macy's starts playing "Jingle Bells" in October, there's a Santa takeover in every mall across America, clothing sales are shoved down your face, the lights, the trees, Ellen's 10-Day-Giveaway... It's this HUGE lead up to one day. 

And although I do not celebrate Christmas, I do enjoy the Christmas spirit. It the only time of year when everyone seems so cheerful. Neighbors wave to one another, strangers become uncomfortably friendly, the grocery clerk will even sneak in half a smile. It's hard to not be happy when everyone around you is so happy.

This past Christmas Eve, while on a 7-11 run, a friend and I noticed all the policemen and policewomen that were on duty instead of being home with their families. And with all the cop-hate in the news lately, we felt that we wanted to do something to show our appreciation. 

And what better way to show that appreciation than with two dozen doughnuts?

We had to make numerous stops because we kept clearing out every Dunkin Donuts (and there were only so many of them open at 2am on Christmas Eve.) But five Dunkins, 24 Christmas-decorated doughnuts, and 45 minutes later, we rocked up to our local 71st Precinct.

Photo Courtesy of Google Images

When people say that cops don't actually like doughnuts as much as everyone thinks they do, they're lying. Not only do they like them but they were on first-name basis with every variety of doughnut that Dunkin Donuts sells. 

I'm not going to tell you that they weren't surprised/confused/suspicious of us (because they were. Including the one lady standing there in handcuffs). But who's going to refuse a girl holding two large boxes of free doughnuts? 

I may not celebrate Christmas, but I'm all for spreading a little cheer. Especially to those in bullet-proof vests, protecting and serving instead of being with their own families. A few doughnuts were my small way of saying "Thank you."

Bear Hunting On The Delaware

Sometimes you come back from bear hunts wounded and sometimes you come back dead. Luckily I didn't die, but I came pretty close.

To be honest, I wasn't even aware that I was on a bear hunt until I actually saw a bear but then I went right into hunting mode. And by "hunting mode" I mean I sang the Bear Hunt Song and then kayaked away. (See how I just casually informed you that I was on a kayak during this bear hunt?)

But here is the documented proof of the bear:

And here is the proof that I was actually on a kayak:

And my new-found muscles are proof that I put in more effort on this 7 mile kayak trip than my sister did.

We Almost Bought A Penguin

You know those normal offices that are calm and orderly, where the work is routine and everyone stays in their cubicle? Well that's not where I work. My office is one tiny room with three normal size desks but that's the only normal about it. My hours are not normal (though I won't be complaining about showing up at 2pm), my clients are not normal (don't get mad if you're one of them), my work environment is not normal (there is a bottle of vodka on my desk to maintain sanity) and my boss is the least normal of all.

There was the office pet turtle (of the Thomas the Stupid Turtle saga) where I didn't think things could get any weirder...but then they did.

I made a sarcastic joke about buying a penguin to replace the turtle, but it became a lot less funny when my boss started doing serious research on how one can go about purchasing a penguin. He found a shady website with penguins available for purchase where they would give the animal a "subtle sedative" to slow their heart rate so they could be shipped via UPS without food for 5 days. I don't know if it's worse that this website actually exists or that my boss was seriously considering BUYING A PENGUIN! 

And just when I thought he had come to his senses, I show up to work only to discover that he had bought the one thing more random than a penguin: Seahorses. The man bought seahorses. And not just one, he bought two of them:

He also special-ordered salt water and fresh algae but when I suggested we buy a killer whale next, I was the weird one...