This morning, my car died.
It started out fine. I moved the car out of my garage and into the street, turned it off real quick, tried to turn it on and wham … everything died. I wasn't sure what happened (car is only two years old) but I have not driven this car for over 2 months.
I was blocking traffic, causing mayhem. I couldn't start the car and couldn't even put it in neutral to push it. I was stuck.
I called a tow truck. They said they would be at my location within 30 minutes. I waited … but I did not want to wait 30 more minutes (or potentially longer) and I had no visibilitiy into when the tow truck would actually arrive
I probably just need a battery jump … that would likely do the trick. So I tried to flag down passing cars to give me a jump. But this is San Francisco and they probably thought I was trying to ask them for spare change … so they all sped away.
So I did what any Internet-phile would do, I used the interwebs…
I ordered a car on Uber. Sure enough, there was a car driven by Monty a few blocks away and it arrived in 2 minutes. Yes, 2 minutes.
He manuevered his Lincoln Town Car next to my little hybrid and we hooked up the jumper cables and whammo — my car was back in business!
First thing I did was jump out of the car and I gave Monty a great big hug. Not sure what possessed me (I'm not normally a hugger of strongers) but Monty was just so helpful.
Unfortunately, there was no way to pay him on Uber (the official trip was 0.00 miles) but I gave him 5 stars and $40 in cash (and the hug). I definitely owe Uber CEO Travis Kalanick a drink to make up for the lost Uber commission.
Thank you Uber and thank you Monty!
I think it is really better than a tow truck business, don’t you think? They better have a good practice of responding immediately with their customer since usually, the case is that, they were called in urgent times. Tow truck business really have a very bad image in our place, they’re always late too.