An Uber Nightmare!

So this happened two days ago when I booked an uber to get to New Delhi Airport to fly to Europe for Steemfest 3.

I had an early morning flight to Berlin so I had booked an uber for the midnight on the previous evening.

When the scheduled time arrived, there was no uber in sight. I had to recheck what happened and I got to know that uber had automatically canceled the cab because the payment method I used wasn't working.

Then my dad did a booking again through his app. He warned me that the driver had sounded drunk when he had called him but since it was a short ride to the airport and also hoping on the possibility that he wasn't actually drunk but just might be sleepy, I was cool.

Then he arrived.

I bade goodbye to my family and sat in the cab. The first thing I noticed was that he didn't have a mount for his phone on the windshield and he was checking maps on the left hand and driving with the right.

This was the first red signal for me.

I advised him to buy a mobile phone mount and that it was available at cheap prices online to which he replied there was no point in buying it as his kids would want to play with it and destroy it.

And then we were just having some casual conversations when he eventually got tired of holding the phone and kept it on the dashboard.

I thought he knew the way and didn't need a map to take me to the airport.

Then the second red signal happened!

There's a U turn which we're normally supposed to take to get to the airport and just when it was getting closer, I picked up his phone and showed him that he was too take a U turn.

As you'd expect, he missed the U turn. When I questioned him, he said he knew a better route.

I believed him.

We kept moving ahead on the highway when we started to see many taillights far away. When we got closer, we realized that there was a big jam ahead.

We waited in the traffic for more than 10 minutes and that's when I started getting pissed off at him. I sat silently looking at the map and didn't bother shouting at him which affected him even more.

When you expect a person to shout at you and he doesn't, it tends to have an even greater impact.

Time was ticking and we were nearing my boarding time. If you've traveled on flights, you know that they don't allow you to check in even if you're 1 minute late.

I kept faith and sat and waited.

I think we spent atleast 1 hour in the traffic!

I was constantly looking at the map so as to direct him to go in the shorter route that the map tells. He still wasn't ready to take the way suggested by maps because the route he was on was shorter but it would take a longer time to reach because of traffic.

This is when I raised my voice and asked him to take the longer route that was totally empty and would take us faster.

He was a kind of guy who doesn't listen to anybody (I found this out while talking to him) but then this time around he had to listen to me for all the goofup he did and he did.

The route would be 10 kms longer but was 10 minutes shorter.

There was another worry that was constantly nagging me at the back of my mind. The fuel gauge was at its last of health and it had been blinking since the beginning.

Also, the car was getting turned off every now and then.

I didn't allow fear to affect me and had faith that I would reach the airport some way or the other.

When he took the longer route and was driving at full speed on my instruction, he would occasionally slow down the car every now and then even when the road was clear.

When I didn't understand why he was doing it and I turned to check at him, he was asleep!

I was like "Whaaaaat" and my jaw dropped open.

We were cruising at 90 kmph with cars and flyovers ahead of us, this guy was sleeping soundly and driving.

I decided to tap on his shoulders, wake him up and keep talking to him so that he didn't sleep off again. It seemed to work.

Finally we arrived at my terminal ALIVE and that was nothing short of victory!

What was a 20 minute ride to the airport turned into a 1.5 hours adventure.

Mind you, all these incidents took place at midnight 2 am and that's why I didn't wanna get down the taxi in the middle of nowhere to catch another one.

Hope you enjoyed reading my experience.

If you've had such experiences, lemme know in the comments!