Artist’s impression of Matt and Bec using Uber.
It had been a while since Matt and Bec had needed to call a taxi home from something. Living in a country town and being, generally speaking, old and boring, meant that a ‘big Friday night out’ these days was opening a second bottle of wine and staying up past 9pm to watch a third episode of Parks and Recreation. There was talking of going to a rodeo once, but that was cancelled after the bull, who was the star of the show, turned out to be a cow.
Having finally become fed up with not doing particularly much with their weekend evenings, and with The Milmerran Camp Oven Festival the only major event looming on the Toowoomba social calendar, Matt and Bec decided to go back to Brisbane, their old home town, to see hit musical The Lion King. It had been a wonderful show, but now they had no idea how to get back to their hotel.
Bec: How good was The Lion King.
Matt: It was OK.
Bec: What do you mean ‘OK’? Didn’t you have fun?
Matt: You told me The Lion King was the heartwarming true story of a young African boy who decides, in the vein of Mighty Ducks, to coach a team of swimsuit models in their first international monster truck competition.
Bec: Surprise!
Matt: And there was a lot more singing than I expected.
Bec: A lot more singing than you expected in a musical?
Matt: That was a musical?
Bec: What did you think it was going to be?
Matt: I thought musicals were about Italians.
Bec: That’s Opera.
Matt: Well, either way, it was OK I suppose. But let’s go home. I’m tired.
Bec: I can’t see any taxis. And I’m not walking in these heels. It’s almost a kilometre back to the hotel. Can you carry my shoes please. What are we going to do?
Matt: Let’s Uber it.
Bec: Whats an “Uber it”?
Matt: It’s an app that lets you book a ride home.
Bec: It sounds like a German porn star.
Matt: It’s not a German porn star. It’s an app. It’s very good. They sometimes have free water in the cars.
Bec: How do you know?
Matt: I read it on the internet.
Bec: Is there an Ümlaut in Über?
Matt: I don’t think so.
Bec: There should be. I’m not travelling with a grammatically incorrect app. If they can’t get the grammar right, how do you know they’ve got the tyre pressure right?
Matt: Do you even know what the correct tyre pressure is?
Bec: 100.
Matt: 100 what?
Bec: Kilograms.
Matt: Wrong.
Bec: Get your Uber thing out. Let’s go.
Matt: OK. Done.
Bec: What do you mean, ‘done’? How do they know where we are?
Matt: The app just does it. You press a button and a car comes to you.
Bec: You mean a ‘taxi’.
Matt: No, it’s just a dude with a car.
Bec: You mean a ‘serial killer’.
Matt: No, they do a safety screening on all cars and drivers. And a criminal history check. And a driving history check. And they have to wear a suit, and nice shoes. Which serial killers don’t have. And they have to get a good rating to stay employed, so serial killers can’t be drivers.
Bec: What if it’s Patrick Bateman from American Psycho? He would have nice shoes.
Matt: He wasn’t a real serial killer, he was just a book/movie serial killer, and I’m pretty sure he was making it all up in his mind anyway. Either way, he wasn’t wearing shoes when he did his serial killing.
Bec: Thanks David Stratton.
Matt: Look, here comes the car.
Bec: Where?
Matt: There. The Black Prius.
Bec: How do you know that’s our car? That’s just a normal car.
Matt: That’s the whole point. That’s why it’s cheap. And I know it’s our car because the app says so. Look it’s stopping.
Uber Driver: Hi, are you Matt?
Matt: Yes. Hello.
Bec: How do we know he’s not a serial killer?
Matt: He’s not a serial killer. He’s wearing a suit, and he has carefully placed some bottles of water in the back for us, and there’s even a copy of today’s paper.
Bec: How do we know it’s not a trap? What if the water is poisoned? I’m going to ask him. Excuse me, how do we know you’re not a serial killer?
Uber Driver: I’ve passed a criminal history check and I’ve been driving taxis in Brisbane for 20 years and never had a complaint. In fact, I won the award for best customer service three years in a row. How do I know YOU’RE not a serial killer?
Bec: Why would you think I was a serial killer?
Uber Driver: Well, you’re not wearing any shoes for a start.
