Men Are Scary.
Walking as a Woman in the world, on my Journey Towards Safety.
Yesterday, I got in the car with my Uber driver around 3:00p.m.
It was sunny out, and I was looking forward to visiting a new cafe in another part of town. The place was far—more than an hour by bus, and only 25 minutes by car.
So I decided to treat myself to an Uber for a little self-care, in honor of my self-care Sunday. With Uber, I would be able to arrive more quickly and safely, without having to cross the crack-infested park to walk to the bus stop, and expose myself to more male harassment on a busy, dangerous street, while I wait for a bus.
I opened the car door to my Uber and was greeted by a scruffy-looking black man. He asked me how I was doing, and we exchanged a polite greeting. Something about him was a little off, but he was being friendly, and he had a 4.87 star rating, so I trusted it would be okay.
He went around the block in a circle, then set off on the proper route towards where we were headed, and told me that Uber was taking him in circles. I looked out the back window and saw that we were indeed, only one block from where we had started, after two minutes of driving. I knew that Uber sometimes did some strange routing, but I couldn’t fathom why it would route him further away from the destination for the first two minutes of our trip. Strange, but I didn’t mind. We were well on our way, heading in the right direction.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Mt. Airy” I said.
“Oh…you know, Uber is taking me in circles. You mind if I take my way?”
“Take your way?”
“Yeah…I’d just turn off the app to make it look like you’ve already arrived, and then I’ll take my way.”