Guess my name

A few weeks ago I was in LA, being a young professional, eating Pop Chips, and taking a lot of cab rides. And the cab rides were sort of the worst.

I thought the very worst ride ended with my driver punching the dashboard when I told him I didn't have cash, then fumbling with a credit card machine while screaming "Get away from here, I don't accept your kind!" at a group of teenagers banging on the windows. But then it actually ended with my realizing I had given him the wrong address and was pretty lost, so I wandered around a while before standing in front of an out-of-business menorah store for a half hour because it seemed like the safest area.



My trick for deciding if something is dangerous is imagining how the worst-case scenario would look in the newspaper and "Girl Robbed Blind by Wrong Sort of Teenagers in Front of Out-Of-Business Menorah Store" sounds like a horrible newspaper headline so I knew I was safe. Also the capitalization is all wrong in that, I faked sick the day we had a headline capitalization test in middle school and never looked back. In French you only capitalize the first word which in my opinion makes it a strong contender for Best Language or Second best language, depending on how you capitalize and what your favorite language is.

That's a long way of saying that I was excited when my friend told me about a new sort of cab service where you sign up on your phone and it charges directly to your card. No cash involved! No finding one, they come to you! I won't tell you the name because I don't want to buzz-market it, but believe me, it is great. It is extremely fancy.

These cabs meet you wherever your smartphone is in less than five minutes. All black on the outside, all back on the inside, enough legroom for the lovechild of a spider and an octopus which also happens to be my new greatest fear. My driver was a composed man in his sixties wearing a driving cap - he ran through all the benefits of the service in what sounded to me like a fake accent. I was never going to spend another night alone in the dark trying to remember the story behind Hannukah and I was pretty excited.

"I LOVE this!" I said.

Without missing a beat he adjusted the rearview mirror so he could make eye contact.

"And we love you, Brooke."

Which brings me to the one bad thing about this cab service: apparently the drivers know your first name. And they're excited about it. I started alternating between pretending he knew my name because he was my professional chauffeur and trying to forget the whole thing had happened but switching back and forth between the two made me carsick. Luckily he kept the conversation going.

"It pays great, Mondays are the slowest but this Monday I still made $500."

"You're kidding!"

"Well, actually I made $450, but it's close to $500 and I thought it would be easier to just round up."

"Oh believe me," I said. "I tell lies like that all the time."

He laughed. "I like you, Brooke. You're my kind of girl."

At this point he realized the street he had been taking to my hotel was a dead end, and he started to turn around. But the best thing about paying for cabs with your phone is you can just suddenly yell "This is well within walking distance!" and jump out of the car when you want your ride to end. And I suddenly did.

And then when I got back to my hotel room I ate some more Pop Chips, because they're a delicious low-calorie snack.