Neighborhood Botch
by Scott Hardie on March 10, 2025
I've heard that riding in the front seat of an Uber signals that you want to chat with the driver, and riding in the back seat means that you prefer silence. I always sit in the back.
But when I went to catch a ride from my house the other night, there was stuff in the van's back seat, so the front was the only option. As I squeezed in, the driver cheerfully asked, "Do you like the neighborhood?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess so," I said, still trying to get the seat belt on. The driver started rolling away.
As he drove, he kept muttering questions, increasingly quietly. Between his dwindling volume and Arabic accent, I couldn't really understand what he was asking, so I kept offering bland responses. "Uh huh." "Yeah." "Mmm."
After five minutes, there was at last a lull where he stopped muttering. To fill the silence, I elaborated: "This used to be a really quiet neighborhood. But since they connected the new bridge last year, traffic has gotten really bad here. There are just so many people now!"
At normal volume, the driver said, "Hey, I'm going to have to call you back. I have a passenger." And then he took the earbud out of his left ear.
We didn't talk for the rest of the drive.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
The Little Ship
Our cat Sweetie Pie passed away in her sleep on Thursday night after a very long illness. We don't know how old she was -- she was my mother's cat before mine, and my grandmother's cat before that, and belonged to some other lady in my grandmother's nursing home before then. We have that stranger to thank for giving her the old-fashioned name, but it was appropriate: Sweetie Pie was a friendly cat, who was happy when company came over (especially if they fed her treats!) Go »Summer of Suck II
Science says that complaining is bad for you, but sometimes it helps me feel better, so I'm going to do it anyway. It's my blog and I can cry if I want to. Summer has arrived and I'm miserable. Go »Trial of the Century
I served on my first jury last week, for the gripping case of the Walmart Protein Bar Bandit, accused of a $1.46 theft. Voir dire was oddly focused on whether grazing (eating groceries before you pay for them) was acceptable, whether eating protein right after a workout is important, and whether any of us had strong feelings about the Walmart corporation. Go »Mile-High Hypocrisy
The homeowners' association in a Denver suburb is furious that one of its residents has dared to put up a Christmas wreath in the shape of the peace symbol. (link) Yeah. Keep reading till the end. Go »R.I.P. Pat
Kelly's mother passed away last week. The event had been anticipated for decades: Pat was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child, suffered kidney failure in 1995 and survived on her brother's donated kidney, and had five strokes and five heart attacks and countless operations, including emergency brain surgery in 2007 that changed her personality. She obviously possessed quite an inner resiliency even if she seemed petite and frail on the outside, but it was inevitable that she would someday lose the fight with her own body. Go »
