TVDEra

I’m still from the time when TVDE drivers asked us questions like “Is the temperature good for you?”, “Do you have a preference for a radio station?”, “Do you want water?”. We all felt a little like playing the rich, with a new Ambrósio on each trip. All this seems to have happened in a distant time given the abysmal difference between those days and the present ones.

Today every chao has its TVDE sticker, the official language inside the vehicles has changed to English, driving is always done looking at the map, which is very similar to a playstation game, and anyone is a driver, even if the driving license is shared with ten other individuals, as if it were the HBO subscription.

The next day I asked a boy to lower the music a little, to which he replied: “I don’t listen to it”. In Madrid, on the way back to the hotel after a concert, we went the whole way listening to “Me gusta la gasolina” at disco volume. I didn’t say anything, I just sang inside.

But the most ridiculous situation happened to me last week, also returning from a concert, this time in Lisbon.

Ten minutes after getting into Uber, I already knew that you had been involved with an Angolan girl during the pandemic (she rings the phone, rejects the call), that she had a child of hers, that she found out that she cheated on him (she rings the phone, rejects the call), that she took a DNA test, that she separated, that she doesn’t let him see her son (she rings the phone, rejects the call), that his sister is a vegetarian and has a stone shop in Mafra (she rings the phone, rejects the call) and that in addition to being a driver she is a bartender. “It seems to be urgent,” I said to him, “if you want to answer.” He answers in a loud voice. On the other side, I hear a girl with a Brazilian accent: “Where are you?” she asks in an irritated tone. “I’m with a client, I can’t talk,” replies the man. “You don’t have a client,” she shouts losing her temper. This absurd ping-pong continues until you say to me “Sorry, can you talk to her to understand that you are really just a customer?” I could only answer: “Don’t get me in the middle of your problems”. He hung up. Even now I don’t quite understand what you wanted me to say. A “Good evening. My name is Luísa and I’m an Uber customer”? As if all this wasn’t uncomfortable enough, at midnight I receive a private message from him on Instagram saying: “Good night Luísa”.

And for those who defend taxi drivers, I leave you with a story that was told to me by an Uber gentleman, which is worth what it is worth given the competition, but which I have never forgotten. I know that, as in all professions, there are good people and others not so good, no matter the company they work for.

The said Uber gentleman picked up a customer at a hotel on Avenida da Liberdade and took her to the airport. When she got there, the lady refused to get out of the car, saying she was sure she was at the wrong airport. The gentleman tried to explain to him that in Lisbon there was only that one, despite the fact that for more than fifty years there had been talk of making another one. “It’s not possible,” she said very confused, “I’m sure the taxi I took from the airport to the hotel took almost two hours and passed two bridges.”