It was Saturday, January 2nd and I was out Ubering, now that that's a verb. I had both the Uber and Lyft apps on. I get a Lyft "ping" to pickup at the ghetto Walmart out on Mobile Highway. We Uber/Lyft drivers usually decline such trip requests, even at the non-ghetto Walmarts. Most WM shoppers live pretty close to the store. The trip usually involves a ton of grocery bags for a $3.00 fare. And they never tip. Not worth the time and effort, in other words. But I took this one. Sometimes I am a cold-hearted, money-hungry bastard; sometimes I am a glutton for punishment.
I roll up and see two Black women with the typical grocery cart full of crap, PLUS two small girl's bicycles with training wheels. Warily, I get out and see that many of the grocery bags are full of toys...Christmas toys?
After years of doing this job, you learn a lot about people. Not all assumptions are correct, of course, but most of them are. If you get a "ping" to pick up "Destiny" at one of the fleabag motels in town, you can expect the girl to come out with her "luggage" consisting of plastic garbage bags. She will reek of cigarettes and weed and God knows what else.
At Walmart, the heart-breaking realization dawns on me that these women (a single mom and her mother, I'm guessing) probably had a really austere Christmas, and they've gotten their stimulus money, and so they went out and bought the stuff to have a "delayed" Christmas for the kids.
I could have told them to call for an Uber XL and "noped out of there" as the kids say, but the Jetta has a huge trunk. And what am I, Scrooge? I had to get creative, but we somehow managed to fit it all in. "Where we headed?" I ask as we start out. "Bobe Street, across from the Fast Lane gas station," the older woman says. "You know, the trailers." Ahh, The Trailers. Indeed I do know The Trailers. They're right around the corner. It's a big ghetto trailer park...mostly tiny, old, rundown FEMA trailers left over from some past hurricane that were never intended to be anything but temporary shelter while your real house got rebuilt. There are actually a couple of trailer parks like this here in Pensacola. This place ain't exactly Beverly Hills.
We pull up, and I start unloading. The women bring the bicycles in, and I can hear the squeals of joy from the little girls (twins, I think). The "Christmas wrapping" of the other toys and gifts is just grey Walmart bags, but it'll have to do. The kids probably don't care.
A lot of people got their stimulus money early, deposited right into their bank accounts. Mine took a while last time, and will probably take a while this time too. Not that I care. Money is not much of a problem for me these days, and I've been sort of scoffing at this pathetic $600 handout. When I was younger, I could blow that much on coke and booze on any given weekend. But this one Uber trip reminded me of those who are less fortunate...those who couldn't give their kids a proper Christmas - but were now actually able to. To some people, this stimulus money is not a "handout" at all, but thank the Lord, it's a little New Year's windfall. Lesson learned...again.
3 comments:
I have mixed feelings about the stimulus money, having this sick feeling that someday, perhaps after you and I are long gone, the chickens will come home to roost in the form of 50-plus percent income taxes because our government keeps spending money it doesn’t have. On the other hand, when I read something like this, my heart softens. Lesson learned indeed.
I don't mind the stimulus money directly to the people where it probably directly is used to stimulate the families and the economy. My problem is that any such payments are tied to say "gender studies in Pakistan" as the last relief bill included in the fine print.
... and like Bob said, eventually we are going to have to pay for all of it, including the gender studies.
it just give you a ray of hope each day to see such acts. Russell
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