Kicked Out

It was a picture perfect Autumn day. The leaves were in what I

call my favorite color “Fall”. I was going down Speer Blvd when I got pinged with a note, “This is Stacy – you will be picking up Wayne at the curb”. I thought “Great, an easy pick up”. Wayne was there with a box of stuff. We put it in the back of my car and headed to the destination Stacy had selected. “So how’s your day”? Silence— then the 30-something guy in the front seat starts crying. “She kicked me out… I had no idea. My stuff was in this box and she told me she had ordered a Lyft. She was at work and basically told me to hit the road”. The pastor in me kicked in and I listened as he told me all of his regrets. I thought to myself, “I have been on both sides of this equation… I would always rather be the leaver than the left. Guilt better than rejection”. We pulled up to some place in north Denver. Wayne took his box, still crying. I drove off with Paul Simon singing ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’ rolling in my head.

A couple of rides later I got round two of “girl kicks out boy”. Vic was just angry. “And then she tells me there is a Lyft for you, we are done”. My head was spinning. Were these two women in the same “Throw the bum out” support group? Wayne I felt sorry for. Vic, however, had jerk written all over him. I thought “Did the Lyft algorithm put on sad sack watch? What are the odds of two of these on the same beautiful afternoon”?

In the you-never-know-what’s-coming-in-Lyft-world,I have had my share of broken hearts. My next ride was a couple going to the County Building to get their wedding license. Go figure.

Onward and Upward, Mark