Another Friday after a week of fieldwork. This post has it all from a spider dance to even fun facts about the capital of Alaska. My initial customer was a guy who works at Panda Express. From Las Vegas Nevada, he chose Washington due to the lower standard of living being. Then a bloke who works at Maccas. Eh okay enough of that. Let’s look at my first interesting passenger a kid who is on the way to a house party. He noticed my Aussie hat and commented on it. “Where’s the hat from?” “Australia of course”. My customer went on to how he is going to Australia to hunt wild Buffalo with his grandfather. It is apparently a lot cheaper than Africa. I said “it’s probably because buffalo are not native to Australia, they’re usually found in the top end like the Northern Territory”. Brought over to Australia in the 19th century as a way to get more meat for remote communities two types were introduced. One being from West Asia, which has curled horns and the other from East Asia, with swept back horns. Before 1980 there were an estimated 350,000 wild buffalo in Australia. Mass culling of the creature commenced in the 80s up until 1997. This reduced the population to 20,000. The culling dissipated due to some buffalo being too remote. In 2008 there was 150,000 buffalo recorded. Now there’s hunting tourism to assist in culling the animal. In Africa it is $40,000US to kill buffalo, in Australia it is $10,000. I’m guessing the difference here is that the buffalo in Australia is feral, whereas the buffalo in Africa is native. I told my passenger to be careful of the heat, humidity, crocodiles, and snakes in the Northern Territory. It’s a treacherous, yet beautiful place that is still on my Aussie bucket list. I’ve been to WA, Tassie, SA, NSW, ACT, Victoria, QLD, and even Norfolk Island, but not the NT. Christmas Island doesn’t interest me at all, but the diverse Antarctic Territory does fascinate me. The Northern Territory has always struck me as a wild place, the closest I ever got was in the Strzlecki Desert on a job back in 2015. Such a harsh, yet beautiful landscape. If the heat and the flies don’t get you, maybe the snakes will? I loved it. Even my mobile camp experiences. These were the epitome of roughing it for me. I hate camping in general. I’ve had too many bad experiences. My rider also told me his stepfather is going to take him to Paris on his private jet one day. “Wait what? What does your stepfather do?” He replied with “He owns a lot of businesses, not sure what he does, just know he’s rich”. Wonder who this was then? I thought this kid needs to be careful who he shares this information to. Lucky I’m a not into kidnapping or blackmailing.
I dropped off my passenger and told him to check out my blog if he gets bored. Need more clicks. Next rider was an accountant. She works for a company in town that’s been around for 30 years. She advised to go to Liberty Tax instead. Not as expensive. I said I’ll look into it. I did and was still cheaper to get them done in house.
I got a Lyft ping up near the casino after dropping off the accountant. The rain heading to the destination was torrential. Bucketing down! Tyres were slipping intermittently. I found my passengers near an old campervan parked next to an open field. It was pitch black, no lights except my headlights. I powered my windows down “Need a Lyft?” “What?” Was the response the rain made it very hard to hear my customers. “Need a Lyft!?” They got into my car and said “we’re not staying in this wretched anymore, we’re going to a hotel”. I couldn’t blame them the bloody thing will leak if not careful. The couple was in town due to a death in the family. The lady in the back, her brother died from cancer of the Larynx. Smoking was apparently the cause and it eventually choked him to death. What an awful way to go. I drove them to Haggen first so they could pick up a few things. The husband left us, so the wife and I chin wagged for about 10 minutes. She told me they were from California and she used to live on a farm where she sold properties for a livin, the husband was a former minor league baseball player and gave it all away to be with his beloved. We talked about the wildfires in Australia and how it destroyed 20 million acres and killed millions of animals. Once the husband came back we made our way to a hotel on Meridian, this where we parted ways.
Ping! I got another rider north of my position on Meridian. Walmart. A bloke who works there was in need of a pickup after work. The gentleman used to live in Alaska and worked in Fairbanks. Oh he had some stories from that Walmart. One in particular that stood out is when a transient came in and set up a fake computer in the store and pretended to make calls. He would yell expletives and tell his imaginary clients to get bent. He would then write fake emails to people. Apparently there’s not much to do in Alaska. Even the capital Juneau has no roads entering into the city. Making the city more defensible against Russia and Canada I guess. You can only get there by boat or aircraft. Sounds annoying personally. Another story the man shared with me as how a bear had fallen asleep behind his car, preventing him from going to work. He said that he had sent a pic to his boss indicating why he couldn’t show up for work. That’s a pretty fair excuse to be honest.
Alaska sounds wild. Possibly the last frontier of the USA. Bears, inconvenient ways to get to the capital, and bored hobos pretending to be in a business meeting. Next people was an Alcoa worker and his nurse girlfriend. She had mentioned that her nephew is Australian, but lost his accent moving to the USA.
Speaking of Australian accents my next passenger had been in my car before the one who had claimed to be good at Australian accents, but was genuinely crap at saying Brisbane. Pathetic. However this time she nailed it and told her she pursue a film career being an Aussie Sheila Spinster.
The rider that I picked up next had moho the week before. “What is that?” I asked. “Strep”. “What?” “The kissing disease”. “Oooh, sorry never heard of that before”. Gross, stop kissing people I thought.
Dropped mckissalot at her apartment and boom! More students. Every single person had guessed that I was an Aussie that night. It was so joyous. No one guessed incorrectly. I yelled “you bloody beauty!” When this 21 year old guessed my accent in a heartbeat. Following on from that was another student who appeared to be a gangster rapper who would use odd terms like “on fleek” and “totally extra”. Sure mate whatever floats ya boat. He wants to get into advertising. I’m sure you’ll go far “homie”. Then there was an English major…
Which brings my next fascinating customer. A professor of ethnomusicology. Yes she studies cultural music and dance from around the world. I asked if she had encountered anyone at the anthropology department yet, she hadn’t yet. She was fairly new to the area and went on to her current research on the Tarentella Dance. A dance that originated in Italy as a way to cure themselves of the venom of a spider bite. When she said Tarentella it sounded like Tarantula. In fact that’s where that word came from. Women were usually the ones who were bitten from a venomous wolf spider. This would lead to a fit and then death. The only cure between the 15th and 17th centuries was these lower class women had to dance it off. It was the only cure. Maybe they would sweat it out and cure themselves. Instruments would play including mandolins, tambourines, and guitars.
https://www.eataly.com/us_en/magazine/culture/dancing-the-tarantella/
The Tarentella Dance
What an intriguing story. Following on from her I had a Philippino lady in my car who knew all about Tim Tams. Legendary. She is studying HR and sign language. Not something I encounter every day. The next bloke saw my hat and said Crocodile Dunee and his other half said Indiana Jones, then I spoke “G’day mates, I am Australian and a fully qualified archaeologist”. They both laughed and yelled “awww sh#$!” Hilarious. I told them about some of my adventures.
Next was a bloke who owns a Ford dealership. Sales are all commission based. Oh boy. “Is there a decline in sales?” I asked. “Yes there is, you make most of your money from second hand car sales”. Another passenger who followed works in aged care and does memory games for the elderly. Stimulating their brains to minimize dementia.
Now for a nutritionist. I asked her about the keto diet and what she thought of it. She replied with utter disgust “It is a fad diet that deprives the body of glucose, the body needs it unless you’re epileptic. Fad diets don’t work, they do more harm than good. You should listen to your body to what it needs, just don’t overdo it”. I replied with “I have heard multiple people who have lost weight from this diet”. She went on, “You do, but then your body isn’t getting the proper nutrients from fruit and vegetables. A balanced diet, portion sizes, and exercise is all you need”. Interesting, for those of you who don’t know keto was developed as a fight against people who suffer from epilepsy. You completely take sugar out of the diet and replace it with protein. That’s right that carrot is now bacon. That apple is now a steak. No sugar. Peas, beans, and potatoes are all okay. I always thought it wasn’t good for you. Only because you would deprive your body of certain vitamins and other glucose.
More students. One who decided to puke out of my car. Phew! Well played sir, well played. Then more passengers honouring basketball player Kobe Bryant, may all the people who died in that horrific accident rest in peace. All taken too early.
Finally a passenger who booked me to go to Canada instead of Ferndale. The guy was hammered and was trying to be a gentleman. Unfortunately the lady friend had already booked another uber and apologised to me and left for another driver. Such betrayal. Fine! I’ll just go home!
Only three trips Uber, but Lyft had 21 rides. Next up a whimpering Wednesday.
