Lyft phone

Like all things New York, no good trip goes unpunished.

The wife and I escorted my 92-year-old father and his 90-year-old “girlfriend,” Mary, to the Big Apple for a quick 5-day visit. The weather was perfect. There was plenty to do for all. We spent a fortune of my father’s money and some of ours to live like the 1 percent on the Upper West side for 4 days in a row.

But getting to the Upper East side, or Hell’s Kitchen with four older folks meant cabs (or more conveniently Lyfts). The wife and I had to squeeze our retirement age bodies into the third seats of these “Lyft XL” vehicles and figure out how to adjust seats for cars we have never used. Believe me, it’s worse than it sounds.

The one driver we hoped to never see again was Victor. The Russian automonaut who stopped his black Cadillac Escalade on Columbus Ave while we were waiting 200 feet away on Broadway. In between the two streets, there were three black Cadillac Escalades waiting to pick up passengers.

Before the Lyft map could update, Victor immediately called my cell phone and sent text messages faster than my robocall app could screen the calls. All this spam blocked my screen, so I couldn’t see the Lyft map of where his car may be. His text read.

“I’m on the corner.”

We were at the end of a triangle formed by 63rd street, Broadway and Columbus. Which fucking corner you talkin bout Victor?

I opened the door to Escalade number 1 on Broadway. “Are you Victor?” Scared the shit out of a small brown person who was just trying to take a nap between drives.

Walked past Escalade number 2 on 63rd Street.

My dad kept trying to read my phone over my elbow and keeping me from turning to adjust the map (he doesn’t know how to use a cell phone).

My wife kept filling my ear with “advice” about which Escalade to take like we were picking “doors” on “Let’s Make a Deal.”

And they all kept following me around especially after I said “wait here.”

Meanwhile, my phone kept pinging and binging with more Victor calls while I’m trying to clear the screen and read the map. Finally, I look up toward Lincoln Center and see a crazed man in the front seat waving frantically at me. I gather up my little herd of turtles, and we limp toward Victor’s Escalade.

I open the back door — Victor has the front passenger seat covered with his shit, so the wife and I will have to fit all the way in back. I pull the handle, the second seat slides forward but not up. Stuck in a none-shall-pass position.

“Pull, Pull, Pull it,” Victor says again and again in ever more urgent tones to get me to hurry.

I’m pulling. Nothing is happening. We do the pull dance about three times with Victor’s “dance calling” getting louder and more frantic. I give up, let go of the handle and try again. This time the seat tilts forward. The wife and I climb in back.

The two middle seats are all the way back. We can’t figure out how to slide them forward. The third seat headrests are down. The wife and I are literally huddled into fetal positions.

Victor is yelling at me “answer your phone.” “We have to be able to communicate,” he says. As I try to explain that it takes a few seconds for my call screening app to open a line, he continually talks over me. “Answer your phone. I almost left, I don’t have time to wait. It’s impossible to wait here.”

I’m going to learn that everything is “impossible” for Victor.

We manage to calm down enough to share the ride down 9th Ave to 42nd Street and the pier where the Circle Line boat will take us out into the harbor for a beautiful view of the city.

We unfetal. Scramble from the car and try to follow the incoherent signs on the dock for the circle line tickets.

I have the tickets on my phone. I tell my fellow turtles to “wait here”. They immediately follow me across the pier as I ask a Circle Line employee where the line is for online tickets. It is, of course, right back where we got out of the car.

“Why did we walk over here?” my dad asked. His brain works fine. It’s his ears that don’t work. The wife’s brain works and her ears are fine, she just always ignores whatever I say. And Mary was just happily following the crowd.

We get on the boat. I head for seats on the first floor under the cover with all the windows where there are plenty of seats easy for us all to access. No stairs for the 90-somethings.

“Let’s go upstairs out on the open deck,” the wife said. “The weather is perfect.” The others agree until we get to the steps.

“I don’t think I can go up,” Mary said as she looks at the narrow, twisty, dirty and slippery metal steps leading up. The wife and I go up anyway assuming the others will stay on the first deck.

5 minutes later, my father is standing next to me on the upper deck. “We decided to come up.” And they are smartly sitting under a canopy. I’m pulling up my hoodie to keep the 60-degree sun from burning my pigment-impaired face. My dad hands me a hat. “Mary had an extra…”

Nice. Things are looking up. Should be a great boat ride around the harbor.

Find my Phone

“I can’t find my phone,” the wife said. “It’s not in my purse.”

I check “find my phone app” and sure enough the wife’s phone is heading across the bridge into Brooklyn. Slipped out of her purse as we bent and scrambled in and out of the third seat.

Look up Lyft’s policy on lost items. Totally up to the driver. But Lyft will charge $20 for returned items (that $20 is supposed to go to the driver and get charged through Lyft and you can tip on top).

Call the Lyft number for the driver, no answer. Check Lyft help files, you can text the driver in the Lyft app. I text that we lost the phone, can he drop it back at hotel? We will pay you through Lyft. No answer.

About an hour into the boat ride, I call the driver again. He answers. I tell him I tracked the lost phone to his car and can see its location.

He ignores me. “Let me find the phone,” he says, as he goes looking through his back seat. “I found it. Your phone is in my car.”

Of course it is.

I tell him he can drop it at the hotel when he is back in Manhattan.

“I’m on Long Island,” he said. The map says Brooklyn.

“Do you know how far it is to Manhattan? I don’t have time for this. It’s impossible. Maybe I can get it back to you in the next few days.”

“We leave Friday,” I said. “But if you bring it to Manhattan we will pay you $50.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” Victor said. “I don’t own this car, I have to drive it all the time.” I learned about where he lived, how many hours he works, how many trips he takes. I took to just saying “Understood, understood” to get him to move on and listen.

“It could be a few days before I’m back in Manhattan,…”

“Understood.”

“We can pay you through the app. Just drop off the phone at Empire Hotel.”

“You have to meet me,” Victor said. “It’s impossible for me to drive to Manhattan.”

“I’m on a boat.”

“Come to Long Island or Brooklyn if you want it now, I can’t get there for a few days… it’s impossible.”

“Understood.”

There’s no point in continuing the conversation. I follow up with another text and we watch Find my Phone drive my wife’s phone all over the city. Queens, La Guardia Airport, Brooklyn…

We take another Lyft back to hotel. Driver got lost trying to pick us up and had to go around the block cursing and crying most of the way. But his seats worked better, and we didn’t leave anything.

That afternoon, we watch the wife’s phone come back into Manhattan. It’s at 47th and 7th Ave. I try to call Victor.

“Just tell him we will pay him $50 cash,” the wife said.

No answer. I text the cash offer. No answer.

15 minutes later and the phone is headed back to Brooklyn. I guess it was impossible to drive the .9 miles to our hotel to collect $50. By the end of the day Wednesday, my wife was resigned to never seeing that phone again.

Thirsty Thursday

By Thursday, the wife had a chance to sleep on it, and fuck this “give up shit.” She is done communicating through me to the driver.

“Give me your phone.” She calls. No answer. She sends a long text. Come to the hotel anytime, there will be an envelope full of cash. She leaves $50 in an envelope for Victor at the front desk like we are in a 1950’s spy movie.

The front desk clerk holds the white envelope, looks at me with an expression of What da Fuck? I shrug. In silence we agree to say nothing and not challenge the immovable force that is my wife. My wife turns. The clerk puts the envelop behind the counter. Her face says, this is never going to work… I nod and say “thank you.”

The battery has gone dead. There is no more tracking of the iPhone held hostage in Victor’s Escalade.

The wife calls two more times. She leaves two more texts. We sort of hang around the hotel Thursday afternoon in hopes of a Victor miracle. And just like Jesus, it never comes again.

Fuck it Friday

By Friday, the wife is done.

“I’m getting that envelope back.” She calls Victor. No answer. She texts. We are leaving, please mail the phone and leaves our address.

“I can’t believe he wouldn’t just drive a few more minutes for $50,” she said.

We take a different Lyft to Newark airport. Get on the plane. I start feeling very sick. Runny nose and fever. Get home to Gilbert. Test positive for Covid.

The wife, my dad and Mary, never get sick, never test positive.

Suffering Saturday

Saturday I’m home in bed with a fever. Not the end-of-the-world-I’m-going-to-die-of Covid fever, but the I-just-had-the-latest-vaccine-booster-last-week-this-is-kinda-inconvenient fever.

The wife is at the Verizon store getting a new phone.

My phone rings. It’s Victor.

“I still have the phone, but I can’t mail it — it’s impossible…” After a long conversation that goes nowhere, we decide to text. 30 minutes of looking up options for COD (“this is New York, I can’t wait 2 hours at the Post Office, it’s impossible”) to mailing from Staples (“I can park there, but it’s impossible to get there until next week.”

I check with UPS on paying for a pre-packaged shipping. I text Victor.

“I need the exact address for the Staples you plan to go to.” No answer. I let the wife know the status.

She has her new phone. “But it would be nice to get that phone back, we are still paying for it. Our bill will go down a little if we can turn it in.”

Salvation Sunday

Sunday comes. The wife is in the living room watching TV. I’m isolating and sleeping in the guest bed. My phone rings. It’s the hotel.

“We have a Lyft driver waiting for his envelope. We don’t have an envelop.”

Victor gets on the hotel phone.

“Victor we left Friday.”

“I just got your voicemail, I want the $50. I have to go before I get a ticket. It’s impossible to park here. Call me.”

I hand the phone to my wife. She calls. Victor answers. She doesn’t give him a chance to speak.

“I will text you my sister-in-law’s address in Brooklyn with her phone number. She is always there. She will pay you $50 cash. Just call before you go.”

I hear her repeat the message three times, and she hangs up. I thought I heard Victor talking as she did.

She texts the address and phone number. She calls my sister to tell her what may or may not happen.

A little time later, my sister texts. “The driver is going to bring your phone in 20 minutes.”

He did.

My sister put the phone in the mail. 10 days after coming back from New York, we hope the phone will finally find it’s way back to Arizona. It’s Arizona, maybe it’s not impossible. And just like Jesus, we hope we never have to see or talk to Victor again.