There Was A Reason Why

I’d like to say I enjoyed the Uber ride from East Lansing, Michigan over to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport.  It’s a blank cognitive space.  Now I'd have a chance to fill it.  But I didn’t really notice much.  I spent my time trying to book my family a flight from Jakarta to Lombok, toggling back and forth between different combinations and connections.  I’d pause thoughtfully and look out the window but it always seemed to be the same scene of snow extending out passed the shoulder through a field towards a hulking overpass we were rapidly approaching. 

My driver was a peer level gent with big eyes and a bushy beard.  He greeted me with a “Sir.”  Deferred to, I was now uncomfortable.  We discussed life in China.  He had good things to say about all that seemed to have been built over in China.  We gingerly avoided any specific language that would cast either of us, Red or Blue politically.  He had some pop radio on that normally I would have suggested the driver turn off immediately, but as we were setting out on a one-hour journey, and I was merely doodling around comparing flight prices I let it ride for now.  Unlike Chinese radio in a ride back home, this was impossible to drown out and I presently I realized that there was a reason why the rap song I was vaguely following along with offered a message of self-denial and discipline, and this was because the M.C. had taken Christ as his personal saviour.  So did the lady in the anthemic rock song that followed.  The radio jingle and DJ banter between songs was slick, just like commercial radio, but it was all about Christ.  I now reconsidered my driver for a moment and went back to my online effort.

Much later, after flying over the country and riding into San Francisco with a Romanian Uber driver who may or may not have been Christian, it didn’t come up, I rolled up to the Park Central Hotel in South of Market.  I had many bags and didn’t resist when the bellhop offered to help me.  I asked the young guys checking me in if there was a taqueria nearby that might still be open.   “Nah.  Nah.  Call El Farolito.  They’ll deliver.”  “Really?  That sounds perfect. How do you spell it?”

The number is busy a few times in a row.  I imagine that everyone in the city is calling on this Sunday evening.  Everyone ordering things, just like me.  I try a different number I find on line.  It doesn’t work either.  Finally someone answers.  I order a “super beef burrito” with no rice and some guacamole and chips.  Yes.  The Park Central Hotel.  Yes.  Yes.  How long?  Right away?  That’s great.  Thanks."

I had another call told the bellhop to call me if a guy arrived with a burrito.  I paused, because I don’t think I ever told the guy my hotel room number . . . did he have my name?  He had my number.  They’ll call me.  An hour later my meeting-call is over and it becomes clear to me that there is no burrito coming.  I call them up and can’t get anyone to answer.  I call and call and call and eventually someone answers and I ask where my order is.  He listens for a bit and then hangs up.  Now I am incensed and I call and hang up and call and hang up and finally reach someone again who has better English and explains that they don’t do deliveries.  But.  He took my order. 

Sunday, 12/17/17