Zero Star Rating

Surviving Mike

After first driving past our well-marked address and a halting attempt at a K-turn in a neighbor’s driveway, our Lyft driver arrived. Immediately, I sensed something was amiss.

A fellow just this side of ninety groaned his way out of the car to prop himself against the door as Sam, Hannah, and I loaded our bags into the rear cargo area, which appeared to have recently accommodated a shipment of mulch, or the muddy cadaver of large roadkill. The driver told us to sit in the back seat, which was coated in a layer of flaked skin and smelled like a hamper of dirty clothes.  

The driver seemed confused. Not upset; just mildly curious as to why he was in our driveway. To refresh his memory, I told him he was taking us to the airport.

“Right,” he said, getting back behind the wheel. With an arthritic forefinger, he typed in the destination on his phone. The sound had been muted and he didn’t know how to turn it on, nor did he want us to show him. Instead, he held the phone, hand trembling, squinting Magoo-like at its tiny screen. He made it to the end of our driveway and began to turn left.

“No, you want to go right,” I told him.

“Oh, so it’s going to be that kind of ride?” he said, establishing he was no stranger to wrong turns.

“Well, I go to the airport a lot,” I said, flashing what I hoped was a disarming smile.

Immune to my charms, he peered harder at his phone, which offered a different route than the one I was barking into his hearing aid. Conflicted, he proceeded in a herky-jerky manner, as if every turn was a fierce struggle for the car’s soul over my backseat bossiness.

I successfully got him off the local roads and onto I-91, an accomplishment which filled me with mortal fear. He now had to cross three lanes of traffic in a relatively short distance to get to the exit ramp to I-95. I pat myself on the back every time I manage this maneuver, and the chances of pulling it off while addlepated and driving between 25 and 35 on a 65 mph interstate highway seemed slim.

It went better than expected, which is to say we survived, though I had to scream at him to shift over a lane inches before our exit. Still, we were not out of the woods. We were on a main road with a 40 mph speed limit and him inching along at 10. I mentioned we wouldn’t be making another turn for over a mile, hoping he’d speed up to a rate faster than one at which we could comfortably jog.

“What’s your name?” he demanded.

“Laura. Why, are you going send someone after me?” I laughed. He stared at me in the rearview mirror.

“I’m Mike,” he said. “I have a five-star rating.”

Then, bound as we were for an airport to board an airplane, he proceeded to describe a horrific crash at this same airport some decades earlier. “15 people dead, parts of bodies all over the street,” he said. I could have been upset at his insensitive timing, but I figured any common-sense restraint he might have once possessed was long gone, so his banter was reduced to free association.

Finally, he pulled up, or into, the airport’s curb. I had to fight a wave of nausea brought on by the swallowing of my panic every time I felt it rise.   

Safely on the plane, Sam, Hannah, and I talked about giving Mike an honest WTF rating. The only place I felt confident he could drive to without passenger oversight was a fiery death. But then I thought about that liver-spotted hand crabbed around his smartphone and the delusional pride he took in his job and I felt sorry for him. Did I want to get him fired? No. But also, emphatically yes.

He’s a driving ticking time bomb, and I must report him. My hope is he’ll forget my name. To be honest, I’m certain he already has.