Summer Concerts (Deodorant)

If you drive for Lyft in the summertime in Denver you’re going to get to experience every kind of concert, concert goer, and slices of Americana, as riders range from Grateful Dead followers, to the Denver symphony. I  think my favorite concert groupies are the yearly invasion for the band Phish. The Phish bring in thousands of folk for a three day extravaganza. My claim to fame is that I heard them as the warm-up band for Carlos Santana in 1989, at The Colorado State Fair in Pueblo. Sharing that ‘claim to fame’ with Phish fans always gets a “Wow”.

Last Saturday Kenny Chesney held a giant concert event at Mile High Stadium. Warnings were up all week on I-25 to be aware of “Heavy Concert Traffic This Saturday”.   It was actually my intention while doing my Lyft driving, to stay as far away from Bronco Country as possible.  I had taken a group out to a birthday party held at Top Golf— which is an interesting combination of golf, bowling and darts that is sweeping the nation in these amazing three-level venues. My next ride from a non descriptive southern suburb was a woman who came out of her town house in a combination of Harley Davidson gear and a beat up straw western hat— destination Mile High Stadium. Well, so much for my plan to avoid 70,000 drunk country western fans. 

Her comment to me after she got off her phone was  “I am meeting my daughter there and the dumb b_____ is already drunk”.   Yeeee Haaaa.  We had a fun ride for the 14 miles north.  I played channel 59 on my Sirius radio  (Willie’s Roadhouse). I told her “I quit listening to country after attending Willie Nelson’s Fourth of July picnic in Tulsa 1980”.   I really do love old-school country but my brain is not large enough to store new country, hip-hop, rap, techno, and whatever else I don’t understand. This is a confession. I would also add to the list that I can’t stand 98% of what is called contemporary Christian music (I Love Jesus More Than You).  I just turned 69, and as a geezer, I get to hold in utter distain, anything I don’t like.

Well, I began my back-and-forth trips from all parts of the central metro area to the stadium. Each time I ignored the GPS and took my riders my ‘super secret’ way.  They were properly impressed. My last ride to Mile High began in the Highlands, which is not where I expected to pick up country western fans. These two absolutely gorgeous 20-something women got in the back seat and we headed into the chaos that was gathering around 20th and Federal Boulevard. We are not gone three minutes when one of the girls literally screamed out “Oh my God I forgot my deodorant”!!!  In trying to come to her rescue I said, “In my Lyft car I carry water, barf bags, Advil, Altoids, mouthwash, but no deodorant.  Wait, I also have hand sanitizer”!   It became very quiet in the backseat.  She looked at her friend and then she said “I’ll take it”!   I tried not to look and she put a nice blob in each hand and ran it around under her armpits and her tank top shirt. We were all laughing our heads off and then I said as she got out of the car, “Don’t blame me if you meet some hot cowboy and he’s really taken with you and then he looks at you and says ‘something smells like Purell” .🤠🤠🤠

Onward and Upward,

Mark