aleksander

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Uber rides have become a roll of six-sided dice. It’s as likely to roll a natural 20 as it is to have a normal driver.
 
Some rides, you get quiet old men in faded baseball caps just trying to supplement their social security – uneventful, safe rides. Other rides, you get young guys who like to talk about music or lonely middle-aged bachelors who want a little more – both get you there safely but sometimes, it would be nice to just get from point A to point B without weaving between social niceties. You don’t complain, though, because at least you for sure get to point B without troubles. It’s a rare ride when a woman picks you up, usually in the morning when it’s safer for her and you.
 
Then there are the other drivers – the ones with the friendly smiles, white canines flashing, so relaxed you can tell they’ve never questioned the space they occupy. The ones with a lot to say about everything, with more opinions than they need about people they don’t care to know.
 
You don’t know that you’ve walked into a hornet’s nest until you’ve buckled your seatbelt and he starts asking questions. What do you think of this? He lists off a current event, a new policy, something that could have come from either Facebook or Fox News (it’s hard to tell anymore). It’s a trick question: he doesn’t want to know what you think. He wants someone to blame, and he wants anyone to talk with him about America’s latest scapegoat.
 
People like you.
 
Because of people (like you), he says, the Los Angeles mayor slashed firefighters’ budget to fund “woke” things. Because of people (like you), Hollywood is on fire and students are indoctrinated in classrooms and perverts are in political office and doctors butcher little children. Because of people (like you), this country is falling apart.
 
As he talks, the car gets smaller and smaller. You shrink into yourself and even then, your body feels too big and obvious and cramped in the hornet’s nest. While the hornet buzzes away, you wish that people like you had half the power he thinks you have. A part of you wishes that you were big enough to squish hornets under your too big foot. More than that, you wish you could influence government budgets to things like healthcare and education. You wish children felt so safe as to discover themselves in classrooms. You wish people like – or at least, people who cared about you – were in office. You wish everyone, little children and tired, angry adults making ends meet by driving for Uber could receive the healthcare they need.
 
You wish this world was kinder to people like you, him, and everyone else at the bottom because people like you know all too well who is really to blame. It isn’t trans people or ignorant cis people.
 
It is the person who kicks the hornets’ nest.