Cheaper than the bus

Imagine it is 12am and you’re in your car sitting at some traffic lights when some chick opens the passenger door and sits in the passenger seat and asks for a lift to somewhere totally out of your way. Do you:

(a) Confidently tell her to GTFO.
(b) Hesitantly say sure.
(c) Scramble out of the car saying “take it man, take it all” and throw money at her and then run to the nearest police station.

Well, I chose (b). Most people I tell this story to say “WTF Sam, why didn’t you kick the bitch out?” Well, in hindsight I wish I had, but I felt really awkward and I didn’t want to be rude.

So I was out in Civic that night to pick up my at-the-time boyfriend. I wasn’t out with him because I was battling a cold, but when he called me asking for a lift home I couldn’t say no. So I got up and dressed and started driving out to Civic. It was buzzing that night and I couldn’t find him so I was circling around a lot. When I was stopped at one set of lights this girl jumps into my car asking for a lift to Belconnen. Even though I was supposed to be going to the South Side I figured it would only be about 15 minutes out of the way; it would be my contribution to society, my civic duty, my arc de triumph.

Probably not the last one.
Still, I thought I’d be putting some positive energy into the world, so I said yes.

So I went looking for my (now ex) boyfriend, eventually he found me and jumped into my car, along with two of his mates. It was news to me I was taking them home too, but I wasn’t going to let them feel awkward or be stranded in the city, so I greeted them and started driving.

I decided to take Belconnen girl home first, even though the boy’s friends were in the opposite direction, in Queanbeyan, (which isn’t even in the same state.) So I headed out west to Belco, but this girl wasn’t telling me to take any of the turns... so I kept going... and going... and ended up in Dunlop.

I was a bit miffed that she didn’t tell me she meant the extreme limits of Belconnen, but being the timid pushover I am I didn’t say anything.

When she got out of the car she kept insisting she pay me and I was like “oh, nah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it”, happy that a good deed is its own reward. But she kept insisting saying “just say what you think is fair”. So I thought about it, and though it didn’t come close to covering the time or petrol it took to get a car full of people out to the edge of Canberra, I said $10.

She handed me $1.70.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so cheap or so used. That doesn’t even cover a bus ticket - a concession bus ticket at that!

So I got back in my car and was like “well, that was weird” and I told the carful of people what had happened. Well, the two of the people in the back were like “whoa, that girl is rude” but my (now-ex-for-partly-this-reason) boyfriend was outraged.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know her!”
“Who gives someone they don’t know a lift?”
”I would never ever put my friends second like that!”

He basically consistently berated and humiliated me in front of his friends, who I didn’t even know I was giving a lift to, the entire way to their place. And anyone who knows Canberra would know that the trip from Dunlop to Queanbeyan is not a short one.


So, that took away any possibility of those good charitable feelings I was envisioning earlier. I felt cheap, used and humiliated. I took him home and drove myself to my place and cried myself to sleep 2 hours after being woken up earlier for the worst errand of my life.