The Carpool Log #3: Our Guy, Friday.
This is Pt. 3 in a new series I am doing where I document the the results of car-rides to Logan Square from Andersonville. I’ll explain…
I do a late night show The Neo-Futurists theater called “The Infinite Wrench”the show is an attempt to do 30 plays in 60 minutes. I am not going to get too much into it here. You can check out the website. The most important thing to know is that we, the ensemble, writes all of the pieces in the show. We write them, and we pitch them to one another on aTuesday and if it gets in, we do these pieces live in front of an audience Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Recently, I wrote a play called “Carpool.” This is how the play works: I come out on stage and say: “Is anyone driving to Logan Square after this?” If someone raises their hand, I ask them to give me a ride. It’s simple, the inspiration for it’s existence even simpler:
1. My boyfriend lives in Logan Square.
2. The show gets out late.
3. The theater is apprx. 15 minutes away from Logan by car.
4. I don’t have a car.
5. Logan is impossible to reach (at that hour) by bus.
6. It’s ass-cold winter in Chicago
7. I am not a hardcore winter biker.
8. I like being held like a widdle baby as I fall asleep.
9. I make my living doing performance art, am running out of money for Lyfts
10. I like making new friends.
CARPOOL #3: SUNDAY. We need to talk about something very serious. Yes, it’s been talked about before, and ad nauseam, but until now I have remained relatively silent, and neutral on the issue. Not anymore. We need to talk about it.
MAN SPREADING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Poor, sweet, innocent guy. I am not using your name because I don’t want to embarrass you. You were a little drunk, a little sleepy and just plain old 21 years old. It may not have been intentional: I am sure that you weren’t trying to crush my spleen into my left knee by sitting in a full extended olympic V, I am sure you were merely taking care of yourself; giving your hot n sweaty-skinny-jean-’nads some air. BUT by sitting like an over excited hypochondriac middle aged woman at a pap smear, in a backseat of an Uber with two other human people in it (one of them me, a stranger and granted you owe me nothing, but the other your FRIEND!) you were sucking the air OUT of the entire vehicle. Okay, and yes, I am aware: this is extremely passive aggressive. I wanted to tell you myself, in the moment, but due to the fact that you and your party waited for me THROUGH MY ENTIRE BUSINESS MEETING after the show I was in a tricky position: not only curled up in a ball, with a contracted seat belt but far too grateful and too guilty to call you out.
Tonight was my first time not going in someone’s personal car but splitting an Uber with audience members. They were three roommates who had just recently graduated and had moved to Chicago for Portland. There were three, plus me, all with our heavy coats,and bags. It felt packed. Four of us. Plus our Uber driver who made five.
Our Uber driver: His name was Friday. Like the day. No Joke. That was his name. He had a bag of little Ms. Fields cookies and pack of Big Red Chewing Gum in the center consul and kept reaching for a piece of gum throughout our ride. My companions, as it turned out, were also theater people and working artists. We talked about that, and what else we do to support ourselves. The girl riding shotgun (Ana) and worked at pastoral and the girl in the backseat (Also named Ana! but pronounced Ah-nah) was in an Ameri-cor type program and the boy, whose name I will not say to protect his man-spreading identity, was unemployed. Mid way through our conversation, Friday, who had been relatively silent until that moment, piped in with some truly wonderful yet un-asked for sarcasm:
“You mean I am in a car full of people who do other things for a living because they don’t make enough money doing the thing they really want to do? What are the odds.”
TGIF, know what I mean?
