Sometimes it pays to be a Yes Man, to be the guy who’s down for anything.
I love a good cocktail party story, the kind of story that gets told at a social event where people are just getting to know each other. Sure, answering “so, what do you do?” by describing our current employment (as if our job is our identity) is typical. But maybe we can learn a lot about the character of a person by the ways and types of unique and seemingly unbelievable stories they tell. (If anything, I’ve found that the work we do for pay is often the thing we hate most about ourselves.)
What I’m getting at is that if I believe “adventurous” or “spontaneous” are characteristics of my personality, then answering “I’m a dog dad and a Lyft driver” really doesn’t showcase that. I’m under the impression that, when appropriate, storytimes can describe a person far, far better than their employment status.
(Here's a photo of me in 2013, the summer I lived in a tent by the river in rural Virginia. I've talked a lot about my Appalachian Trail trip in these first few posts, but that whole experience is just a good example of what I'm getting at here. The short version of how I ended up out there involves me saying "Wow, dude, that sounds like a sweet trip. If money weren't an issue, I'd be out there with you in a heartbeat." Two weeks later, my buddy dropped $1,000 on my gear at REI.)
I hold this belief so strongly that I dedicated an entire area of my website to Mostly True Stories. If you’re one of the core homies, you’ve no doubt heard some of these stories.
For the sake of chronology, I’ll just start with the most recent story I like. Therefore, I wanted to talk about the night I ended up courtside at an NBA game, and I didn’t pay a dime.
Since moving to Portland, my main source of income has been as a Lyft driver. After safely getting more than 2500 passengers to their destinations, I’ve accumulated many memorable stories. When my Lyft career is said and done, few nights will compare to Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
I drive in 8-hour shifts, five days a week. I drive during peak commuting hours. And I drive in a large city. On a typical day, in my 8 hours, we’re crawling along at 22 MPH. It's monotonous. This work isn’t for everyone, but I find it far more enjoyable than the other entry-level job offers around town. Most trips are forgettable, as I’m traveling down roads for the umpteenth time and following a driver/passenger script I’ve performed literally thousands of times.
But on the first warm spring night of 2022, I pick up a couple. We’ll call them Gerald and Emily.
“Hi there, a ride for Emily?”
“Yup, hi, how’s it going?”
“I’m good, going up to North Williams Ave?”
“Yes.”
And we’re on our way. There’s nothing special about this trip so far.
As an aside, compared to when I started driving passengers, I’m much less concerned today about what the passenger wants to listen to on the car radio. Not to say that I don’t throw out their perceived opinions entirely; I’m not playing anything overtly profane or avant-garde. But I used to be under the impression that I needed to play popular FM radio stations, and that by casting the widest net I’d please the most fish.
But now I just listen to whatever I want. For example, last summer I went through Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. I’ve listened to hundreds of episodes of the Stuff You Should Know podcast. I play Fleet Foxes and Andrew Bird albums I loved in college (and still do) in their entirety. And I listen to a daily NBA pod, called No Dunks.
When Gerald and Emily got into the car, I just so happened to be listening to No Dunks. It began a conversation of mutual interests.
“Big basketball fan?”
“Oh for sure. I love the league.”
We chat a little more about the current state of basketball with a few statements like “Oh yeah, Phoenix is lookin' good right now,” and “I can’t believe how far Chicago’s fallen in the standings.”
(Another aside, I’ll let you know a good Lyft driver knows what’s going on in the city: big concerts, local school breaks, and home team games. Going into the night, I knew there was a Trailblazers home game.)
Emily asks me how I like the Trailblazers. I respond by saying I’ve really adopted them as my own team since moving up here. “Well, we might end up having an extra ticket tonight. I think our friend is gonna bail on us,” she says.
Now I’ve had couples butter me up like a biscuit unsolicited in malls, only for them to ask me if I’d like to follow their investment strategies and retire in five years. I’ve had strangers in Walmart ask me if I’d like to join their church. And I’ve matched with Tinder profiles asking me to be their third. In all of these scenarios, I have happily declined.
Maybe it was against my better judgment but in spite of the red flags, I give Emily my actual phone number anyway. She said that if her friend bailed or they upgrade their seats, they’d have an extra seat for me.
I drop them off and don’t think much of the interaction. I’m already on to the next passenger. But Emily texts me a few minutes later, letting me know they’ve got an extra ticket, and she asks for my email. The text felt suspect to read. In fact, my iPhone flagged the message as spam and asked me if I’d like to block that contact.
What the hell, why not? What’s the worst that could be done with just an email address. So I send over my information. I promptly receive an email with a bar code. I make my way down to the Moda Center.
I park the car (this ends up being the only purchase I make of the night). A sea of people are lining up for the biggest game of the year, as a former player and fan favorite have made their return to the stadium.
Now I’m still skeptical, even in the queue, that my ticket will be legit. This surely is some kind of practical joke. They’ll get some kind of notification that I attempted to scan their bar code, and they’ll laugh at me from inside the stadium.
But I get to the front, flash my vaccination card, walk through the metal detector, and scan my ticket. “Enjoy the game,” says the staff.
Holy shit, I can’t believe that complete strangers gave me a ticket to a professional game. The arena is busy because, again, fan-favorite CJ McCollum is back in town for the first time. There are people everywhere; concession and merchandise lines are long. Stadium food scents are strong. The buzz of 15,000 fans drones in the large hallways.
So I make my way up to the top level, where the seats are. The seats are fantastic. I’m at the center court line, with a great view of the entire game. And at this point, I’m so thankful to these strangers, but they are nowhere to be seen.
Only a few minutes into the game, I’ve gotten hungry. I decide that at the end of the first quarter, I’ll grab some food. But as I’m thinking this, I see Gerald and Emily, who are making their way to sit next to me. I was sure to tell them how thankful I was for the ticket. We chatted about the game and got to know each other a little bit more. But from the nosebleeds, the game down below has a way of coming in and out of your attention.
Gerald says to me, “Hey we’ve got vouchers for food and drink, what do you want?”
Who are these guys, I think to myself. This is certainly going to be an invitation to a sex cult, isn’t it? They’re too nice.
So the three of us make our way to the nearest concessions line. They must have sensed my skepticism at the offer of free food, and they explain how they’ve come across the tickets and these food vouchers. Years ago they began a conversation with a person they’d never met before at a local restaurant. This mystery man explained that he was a ticket re-seller and was one of the biggest season ticket holders in the city. And after exchanging information, it seems a transactional relationship was created: The Mystery Man gets Gerald and Emily into every Portland Trailblazers home game, and in exchange, Gerald and Emily deliver food vouchers to his clients all over the stadium.
As if he anticipated it, Gerald gets a text. “Damn, I gotta go deliver $200 in food vouchers to these guys in the 100-section.” He kisses Emily on the cheek and goes.
It was clear that Gerald thought this was a chore, but I thought that as far as random-bar-stranger-interactions go, Emily and Gerald had a pretty nice outcome.
He gets back to us and he excitedly looks at Emily. “We got upgraded! Three seats.”
There’s no way this is real.
Emily says to me, “He,” this mystery ticket reseller, “didn’t sell three courtside seats. You can stay up there or come down courtside with us if you’re down.”
When life gives you an opportunity, you’ve just got to take it. Gerald and Emily have delivered on every part of this tale so far, why would I doubt them now?
They make their way to the court, as if they’ve done this a million times before, and I’m following closely behind them with a basket of chicken tenders and a half-drank beer in hand. We get to the elevator. Because I was the one following them, I was the closest to the door. We go down from the nosebleeds to floor “1.” The other elevator guests exit and I look back at Gerald to confirm. “One more,” he mouths. One more? The bottom floor is barely labeled on the elevator button panel, but I shrug and go one more floor.
I’d never been this deep in any indoor arena. The elevator doors open to a large, cavernous room with noticeably fewer people. There is a concession area with one employee working the counter, but there’s only a handful of people ordering food. This is a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of what was going on upstairs. Gerald insists on getting me another beer, using his fat envelope of vouchers.
Fresh beer in hand, we make our way through a hallway, then another, around a corner, and past a curtain. The cheerleaders, dance team, and a costumed mascot pass us by; the girls smile at us. Gerald and Emily clearly have been here before, and my face must have shown them that I clearly had not.
“Pretty sweet, huh?” Emily smiles at me, and at this point, I’m realizing I’ve got a big grin on my face and I can’t describe how I’m feeling. My eyes are darting around, trying to soak in every second.
On the other side of a 20-foot curtain, we’re stopped by a staff member. He checks our tickets. The jig is up, I assume.
“Cool. Wait ‘til there’s a stop in play and you’re right at the center court line. Jenny is your server.”
We get our own servers?!
We take our seats. Now, I’m a lifelong basketball fan whose gone to 100 games, but never had I been so close to the action. When you’re sitting this close, your attention must be on the game. You can hear coaches and players screaming at each other. The size and speed of the athletes are unbelievable. When players’ bodies crash to the floor, you can feel it in your feet.
I did my best to play it cool, but I had this feeling that I didn’t belong here. I tried to continue to pleasantries of conversation with Gerald and Emily, but I couldn’t keep a focus on anything but the action of the game. I was a kid in a candy store, and it was a highlight of my life as a sports spectator.
In the end, the home team lost, but CJ, the returning player, got a standing ovation. Gerald and Emily walked out with me, gave me a hug, and told me to hit them up some time to hang out. I drove home alone to my girlfriend and dogs to tell them the story.
“You’re the only person who this would happen,” she joked. “How does this kinda stuff only happen to you?”
She’s probably right. But again, there’s something to be said about being the Yes Man. The first time you and I meet, we’re undoubtedly going to chat about what we do for work and some of our hobbies. But maybe we can learn more about each other from some of the fantastical stories that make up the fabric of our lived experiences. These stories showcase far more in the way of our character than the labor we exchange for food and shelter.
Thanks for letting me Overshare.
Alex Francisco
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