{"id":13162,"date":"2016-07-10T08:38:23","date_gmt":"2016-07-10T14:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13162"},"modified":"2016-07-10T08:38:23","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T14:38:23","slug":"prairie-lights-cashing-in-briefly-on-the-ride-share-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/07\/prairie-lights-cashing-in-briefly-on-the-ride-share-market\/","title":{"rendered":"Prairie Lights: Cashing in, briefly, on the ride-share market"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I heard Uber was coming to Montana, I couldn\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

I was dying to be part of this new phenomenon, to be in the front ranks of a cutting-edge movement\u2014even if it has been around elsewhere for years. Plus, I needed the dough.<\/p>\n

\"Ed\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick<\/p><\/div>\n

Trouble was, I\u2019m not very tech-savvy and I hated the idea of learning how to use some new app and then going to all the trouble of getting certified and having my car inspected and maybe being told I needed to get some new shoes.<\/p>\n

So I figured what the hell. I made a sign that said \u201cGuber,\u201d taped it to the door of my \u201997 Subaru wagon and hit the streets of the naked city.<\/p>\n

I figured most people wouldn\u2019t recognize the difference anyway, and that very few Montanans understood the whole concept of using a phone app to hail a cab. I figured they\u2019d see the name and something would click and they\u2019d just flag me down. Nothing to it.<\/p>\n

I figured right. I didn\u2019t get a block from my house before a guy carrying a tuba waved me over.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuber?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d I say. \u201cHop in.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was that. Off with my first Guber fare. Turns out the guy was from Sidney. Came here with a band, band got a little drunk and he ended up by himself on a Saturday morning, no clue where the rest of the guys were. Didn\u2019t even have a phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere to?\u201d I ask him.<\/p>\n

\u201cBus depot,\u201d he says, which is a bummer because it\u2019s like eight blocks away. But he doesn\u2019t know that and he doesn\u2019t appear to know the city at all, so I make a few loops around the downtown, taking different streets and scooting down some alleys.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you figure out what a ride costs?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d I answer, pulling my phone out of my pocket, \u201cit\u2019s all on here. Google Earth, a calculator and the guys at Guber setting the rates.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>He\u2019s cool with that, and when I drop him off at the depot I charge him eight bucks, which he hands over with a two-dollar tip. This Guber thing\u2019s looking pretty good.<\/p>\n

I feel a poker machine calling my name so I point my Guber wagon in the direction of the Crystal and head out. No such luck. Two blocks from the bus depot a lady sees me and starts whistling and waving, so I pull over.<\/p>\n

She wants to go to the West End Target. Ka-ching! She asks about Guber, and it\u2019s obvious she\u2019s got it mixed up with Uber. Says she heard it was a lot cheaper than a regular cab.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not too sure about that,\u201d I say. \u201cBut I just started. We\u2019ll see what they say.\u201d (I tell her this while pointing at my phone.)<\/p>\n

Just then I hear some damned sirens and there\u2019s a cop right behind me. Tells me he saw me pointing at my phone and pulled me over for a driving-while-yakking violation. Second offense, $200. And he notices the expired tags, so I get a warning for that.<\/p>\n

The cop also wants to know what Guber is. \u201cRide share,\u201d I say, and he buys it, too. Even starts talking to me about signing up as a Guber driver. I promise to help him get started, so he rips up the ticket. This Guber thing is like magic.<\/p>\n

I drop the lady off at Target, charge her 10 bucks. She seems to find that pretty reasonable and I\u2019m sorry I didn\u2019t ask for 15.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking to myself, \u201cWho needs Last Best News? This Guber thing is like a license to print money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six blocks from Target another guy flags me down. He was trotting when I saw him and he looked a little sketchy, but I figured what the hell. Can\u2019t start discriminating first day on the job.<\/p>\n

So I pull over and he hops in, panting like mad, and keeps looking out the back window.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere to?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care. I mean, downtown. Yeah, downtown.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just then I feel something cold and hard pressing into my neck. I look in the rearview and see the guy has a gun, and he\u2019s looking at me with wild eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d he says. \u201cI just robbed a casino and I\u2019ve got to get the hell out of here. Pull over in that alley.\u201d<\/p>\n

I do and he says, \u201cOK, you\u2019re gonna get out of the car and you\u2019re gonna leave the keys in the ignition. I\u2019ll need your wallet and your phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAw, come on,\u201d I say. \u201cThis is my first day as a Guber driver. And this car isn\u2019t even air-conditioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHah! Guber,\u201d he says, spitting out the last word. \u201cGuber. You fraudulent son of a bitch. I should call the cops on you.\u201d He pushes the gun barrel farther into my neck, so I guess the conversation\u2019s over.<\/p>\n

I get out of the car, hand over my wallet and phone and he says, \u201cAnd tear off that stupid \u2018Guber\u2019 sign while you\u2019re at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I do and he climbs into the driver\u2019s seat, slams the door and speeds off, laughing like a madman.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s karma for you. I hope the Uber guys have better luck than I did. Looks like I\u2019ll be sticking with Last Best News for a while yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I heard Uber was coming to Montana, I couldn\u2019t wait. I was dying to be part of this new phenomenon, to be in the front ranks of a cutting-edge movement\u2014even if it has been around elsewhere for years. Plus, I needed the dough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[4672,4673,3268],"class_list":["post-13162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prairie-lights","tag-guber","tag-target","tag-uber","prominence-category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}