It’s a Thursday night and these are one of the days where I like to plan my whole day out and try to do everything I can on the list. One of them is to drive Lyft during the night, get a couple of hours in, make my daily weekly goal. As I’m driving into the city, I notice there’s a Giants night game and it’s good because I didn’t plan driving Lyft around surge pricing so it was a pleasant surprise. First couple of passengers were quick and local, the third was something else.
I see four boys at the Caltrain station on 22nd st and Iowa St. I immediately coin them as high schoolers because, first, a couple of them said they are my “Kingy” (my name’s Queeny. Queeny…Kingy…you get it) and I haven’t heard that kind of teasing since high school. Secondly, while they were saying that and the others were laughing, there were some squeaky, crackling voices, in the middle of puberty border line young man. I can tell they were probably in 10th or 11th grade.
I’ve picked up high schoolers before and it still baffles my mind how much technology is changing our childhood, our culture. If ridesharing, smart phones, and apps were available 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have to wait for my mom to pick me up from school every day. Think of how much of the world I could have seen and how much freedom I would have.
I was excited about this ride because the boys had good energy and they were also going about 30 miles south of San Francisco. They asked if I have a charger, check. They asked if I had an auxiliary cord, check. Here is the start of my reminiscence of my past vs. trying to connect with the present.
Loud hip hop rap music talkin’ bout c***s and n****s with a deep base come playing from one of their phones. I liked their music and they were sharing music and listening to each other’s song choice and “vibing”.
While the loud base/rap music was playing, I swooped in during a song change to ask, “are you guys in high school?”
“Yay yayee!!” all of them said at once with their crackling voice. The impression of that is kind of like saying “East Siiiiiiddddde” and throwing up your three fingers and making an “E”, if you can imagine.
“Yay yayee!” that was me. I tried to mimic them thinking that I would fit in, but right when that “East Siiiiide” tones came out of my mouth, oh man, it dated me and it also made it perfectly clear that I’m no longer a teenager. The boys started laughing and I become really shocked that I can’t say that anymore without looking like I’m trying to hard. I laughed it off and they were screaming, “DON’T WORRY, YOU’RE THE COOLEST LYFT DRIVER I EVER HAD!”
What made it worse was that I didn’t stop there. They started to play more songs and the dude sitting next to me leaned his seat back for a song. I guess that’s part of what they do. I don’t know. The boys in the back were jamming to the hip hop music and then I decided to move my shoulder to the music as I’m driving them on this 30 mile journey, 30 minute drive.
The guy sitting next to me was in the middle of dancing and he literally paused for a moment as he saw me moving my shoulders to the music. I don’t think he knew how to react. His face, from what I saw in my peripheral vision, was “what is she doing, I don’t know, I’m going to carry on.”
What it seemed like the loudest my Silver 2001 Highlander can pump up, the loud hip hop music continued playing. At this point, I have removed myself from talking to them and just focused on driving and laughing at myself how funny this moment is for me. Here I am with these teenage boys thinking that I’m a teenager again. It reminds me of this one time when I sat next to a 70 year old man who was talking about his olden days and felt young again.
Loud hip hop music. No talking. Loud hip hop music.
In my head, I thought about suggesting to play Taylor Swift like I always do to splash some innocence on top of their hip hop music, but I was afraid that could potentially come off as creepy or flirting and that would be weird.
Loud hip hop music.
“Is your mom going to be home?”
“No, my nanny will be, but don’t worry, we can get away with things easily with her. Don’t trip.”
Ok. I don’t know what that means.
“Because my mom wants your mom to text her about where I am.”
I drop them off at this gated petite mansion in the middle of know where and the music finally stopped.
It was an enjoyable ride. I enjoyed laughing at myself the moment I realized that I’m about 10 years older than these boys and that I should probably never say “yay yayeeee” again.
Yay Yayeeee,
Dandelion Traveler
dandeliontraveler 