Diary of a Lyft driver during Covid: ‘He says he’s not wearing a mask to ride in a car’

It is Sunday afternoon, and Jimmy is dancing a sluggish drunkard’s shuffle in the overall path of my automobile. His hand-eye coordination is severely compromised. He’s additionally not wearing a face mask.

I’m the Lyft driver despatched right here to gather him from the Hillsboro Bar and Grill in Hillsboro, Oregon. And nobody will get in my automobile with out a mask.

Jimmy surprises me by opening the entrance door and transferring to take the seat subsequent to me. He smells like one of these bars the place drunks as soon as smoked many, many cigarettes. I don’t need him in my automobile. But I take my second job as a Lyft driver critically. I give him a likelihood.

“You gotta wear a mask,” I say. “And not in the front seat. You have to get in the back, and you have to wear a mask.” I’m taking yet one more stand in opposition to these unmasked males (and ladies) who need me to drive them.

Jimmy tries to say one thing, the gist of which appears to be that he has a mask – someplace. He locations his proper hand in his proper shirt pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. And then – I’ve not seen this one earlier than – he locations the pack on his face, the place a mask would go. He is hammered, and has mistaken in earnest the thing he now holds over his mouth for a face mask. He reaches for the deal with of my automobile’s rear door, passenger facet. “That’s not a mask,” I say. “It’s a pack of cigarettes. No mask, no ride.”

Jimmy seems confused and says one thing I can’t perceive. He is indicating he’ll get a mask in the bar. I don’t look ahead to him to emerge with a pint glass pressed to his face. I cancel the ride and drive off, after indicating in the app that the rider refused to don a mask.

I obtain $4.71 and chilly consolation for losing half an hour of my life.

Most of my passengers put on masks by default. Those who don’t fall into three classes. Mostly, they’re both drunk as skunks or they’re anti-maskers. A 3rd class of riders wears their youngsters’ masks, which I solely discover if I look in the rear-view mirror and see their nostrils peering at me like a second set of eyes. I ask them to please cowl their noses in addition to their mouths, nevertheless it’s hopeless: their masks are simply too small.

The drunks are predictable. They are the Jimmys of the world. But the anti-maskers give me the creeps. They need to discuss pseudoscience, making an attempt to persuade me from the curb that the pandemic is a hoax, they usually’re as bizarre because the shit they discuss.

Take Zack.

I arrive to choose up Zack on a chilly Sunday evening in Troutdale, Oregon. His request included a lengthy word about how I’d higher choose him up at a very particular place by the pool at his condo complicated or he’d be late for work.

I discover him wearing Speedo briefs and a T-shirt, and he reeks of patchouli oil. He is not wearing a mask.

“You probably want me to wear a mask,” he says earlier than I can converse. He tries to get into the automobile, and I inform him he has to put on a mask. I make the error of referencing Covid. He is prepared for me. He is occurring an anti-mask rant in the freezing chilly, in a Speedo. He lectures me on “leftwing media hoaxes” after which delivers a mind-numbing spiel of statistics and what feels like pseudo viral sequencing information. I’ve discovered to not reply to these riders aside from to inform them, “No mask, no ride.”

Zack says he’s not going to put on a mask simply to ride in a automobile, and he’s getting actually labored up that I’m going to make him late for work as a result of I’ve been taken in by the leftwing media. Really, I hate the odor of patchouli oil and am about to drive off.

But then he sticks his hand inside his Speedo and pulls out a disposable face mask. Now I’ve to hear to him for 10 lengthy minutes from the again seat of my automobile. Listen to his virus-as-hoax tirade interspersed with calls for to drive sooner or he’ll be late for his shift in the colossal Amazon facility. I can’t assist however ask whether or not Amazon requires masks. (I do know they do.) “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Twenty-six workers tested positive there and they were all back in three weeks. It’s no worse than the flu.”

I’m grateful to get him out of my automobile. Afterwards, sickened by the odor and all, I spray sanitizer throughout my again seat and drive quick with the home windows open for 10 minutes earlier than selecting up one other passenger.

I choose up Bridget on the Portland airport. She’s a mechanical engineer again in city after a convention. As I drive her house to Wilsonville, Oregon, she says my automobile smells clear. I can’t assist however inform her concerning the man who simply half-hour in the past, Speedo and all, was sitting the place she is sitting now. She laughs.

I inform her I’ve to verify: folks like Zack are not regular, proper? The pandemic is actual? I’m not loopy, proper? Sometimes these riders make me ponder whether I’m loopy. Bridget validates my emotions, assuring me that, no, I’m not the loopy one. What I simply witnessed was not regular. And Lyft and Uber drivers and teenaged grocery retailer clerks ought to not be positioned in the place of policing the wearing of masks during a pandemic.

During the following week, I discuss Zack with my mask-wearing passengers. There is a consensus that there must be a federal mandate to placed on a mask each time you allow your home. I admit to asking main questions, however many of my passengers are “essential” employees who get the mask factor, and are all-too-aware that the pandemic isn’t any hoax. I recommend we name our elected representatives and inform them we wish to make folks put on masks. To defend us.

A pair of nights later, I choose up Juan at a WinCo, not removed from the bar the place I left Jimmy. Juan has included a word together with his ride request. He needs me to know he’s blind, wearing inexperienced, and to please search for him.

He’s straightforward to spot. Neon-green rain jacket, a cane – and he’s wearing a mask and rubber gloves. He says two different drivers pulled up and drove off, cancelling on him, slightly than serving to him get his groceries house in the rain. He’s apologetic. I inform him he has nothing to be sorry about. I placed on my gloves and cargo his groceries in my trunk. I assist him get into my automobile. It’s solely a three-minute ride to his house, however who would depart a blind man with a cart full of groceries standing in the rain?

I ask Justin, a fellow Lyft driver, about all of it. I’m driving him to a bar. “Yeah,” he says, “The mask thing sucks.” He says he has to drive as many drunks house as he can every evening from Portland strip golf equipment house to Vancouver, Washington, the place he then picks up extra drunks and drives them again to Portland. This is what he does every evening, forwards and backwards, till there aren’t any extra drunks to drive. He is in opposition to a mask mandate. “I need the rides. I don’t have time to deal with it,” he says.

But I do. Wear your masks, and put on them proper. And get ones that match. I need to see your nostrils protruding at me about as a lot as I need to see Zack’s Speedo.

The creator is a author based mostly in Portland, Oregon. The passengers’ names have been modified to defend their privateness