That Time I Went Home With My UberPOOL Partner

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My grandmother, bless her, is a saint and a font of wisdom. Her favorite saying is, “Well… we all have our strengths.” Usually this is bandied about when one of us is being particularly petty about something. You know, I think we do all have our strengths. One of my strengths is honesty, and I’m being honest when I tell you that one of my strengths is NOT making great life choices at the bar on Saturday nights after day drinking for 12 solid hours.

It was such an occasion on a recent brisk fall evening that I found myself calling an Uber Pool to head home. Setting the scene: it is important to the story to note that my Saturday began with bottomless brunch at a trendy hipster tavern, which I despised for all its mismatched woody decor, except that the food was upsettingly good and our waiter was realllll generous with those mimosa pours. I begrudgingly rated it four stars on Yelp, like the good Millennial I am.

We then progressed to a Christmas themed pop up bar, where I proceeded to wait in line for 30 minutes and dropped $40 on three Christmas themed drinks, also like a good Millennial who loves overpriced peppermint shit with alcohol. At some point I appropriated a pair of festive reindeer antlers and wore them for the rest of the evening, even though I wasn’t wearing anything else holiday related. All pretty par for the course at this point.

Repeat this process at two more bars before my friends start getting tired and decide to head home (around 11:30 p.m. or so). Again, please note the day started at noon. At some point, I befriended two very tall attractive British brothers in the bar and danced with them until 1 a.m. or so. I decided to peace out and call my Uber Pool, being responsible and heading home at a respectable 1 a.m. like the employed adult I am. “Great job, you!” I pep talked myself. “Being responsible for once! Way to go!”

My Uber Pool rolls up, and the only other passenger is a relatively cute mid-late twenties guy with a magnificent beard who seemed relatively taciturn. If you haven’t realized by now, I’m a chatterbox and will talk to anyone and everyone, especially while drunk. Yeah, most of my Uber Pool partners hate me. Did I let that stop me? Hell no.

I immediately engaged with him about Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (which I had just seen) and Harry Potter in general. Was there even an appropriate/organic segue way into this topic? Probably not. I’m sure I just blurted out, “DO YOU LIKE HARRY POTTER” like a complete fucking weirdo. I demanded that he tell me what House he was sorted into and let him know that I was a proud Hufflepuff (he’s a Gryffindor in case you were wondering). For some reason, this guy indulges me and we just talked about Harry Potter the entire ride back to his place. Why this was my topic of choice for the evening, I could not tell you.

He started to get out, hesitated briefly, and then asked, “Would it be weird if I asked you to come in for a drink or something?” I took a moment, pondered the question, weighed the pros and cons, thought about my personal safety, considered my scheduled brunch the following morning, and politely declined.

Just kidding, I said yes immediately and followed him to his apartment like the garbage person I am, leaving our incredibly confused Uber driver in the wake of the cloud of alcohol we left around us. (For the record, I dropped a pin in our ladies group text in case he turned out to be a serial killer, as one does. Safety first, friends!). We get into his apartment and it immediately becomes clear to me that I am not dealing with a real adult here. Roommate, unframed band posters adorning the walls, various country and state flags tacked up with pins straight into the drywall, and just a general musk of man sweat.

I briefly reconsidered my decision… but then, I saw it. A sign that this bearded man and I were meant to get it on in the questionable confines of his basement apartment. The entire 8 disc Harry Potter collection on blu ray was sitting out on the “coffee table” (box of sporting equipment). Of course, we had to watch it. We half-heartedly watched Prisoner of Azkaban while intermittently making out, and then spent the rest of the evening staring into each other’s eyes and having deep conversations about existentialism, the universe, and our favorite allegorical works. Kidding, we made out for 20 minutes then went to his room and banged it out.

I’m not a fan of the sleepover, so I dozed for about an hour, then woke him up so I could leave. He put his number in my phone (for future Harry Potter discussions I assume) and stayed in bed like a gentleman as I collected my clothing from various locations in his apartment #NoClothesLeftBehind. I made my graceful exit into my waiting car which, if you were wondering, was an UberX, and not an Uber Pool, and cruised away into the early morning, smeared mascara and all.

And that, my friends, is the story of how I went home with my Uber Pool partner. And they all lived garbagely ever after..

Image via Shutterstock

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Quinn Truflais

Formerly known as Queen of The Garbage People. Functional title still stands. Dog owner, whiskey drinker, Star Wars fangirl. #DoingItForTheContent QuinnTruflais@gmail.com

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