I was recently in New York City, visiting friends and seeing my old stomping grounds. I used to live there, and still have a very ambivalent relationship with the city, but I can unequivocally say that the city is extraordinarily exciting and fun…at least when you have a return ticket home.
I was at dinner with some friends of mine, a divey vegan restaurant near where I used to live.
The subways were running on their weekend “alphabet soup” schedule, and it took me about 90 minutes to commute from the place I was staying, where it would normally have been a third of that.
One of my dinner-mates had a car, and they were willing to give me a ride back, but they had errands to run, and as it was getting late, I wanted to get back sooner.
The standard process these days is to just catch a Lyft or Uber. Just pull out your smartphone, press the button, the car will be there in a few minutes, your card will be charged, the owners of the company would get paid, your driver would still be indentured, and you will get home quickly.
But I don’t use a smartphone. I don’t have a Lyft or Uber account. And I didn’t want to ask my friend to call the car on my behalf.
So I was in a quandary: what was I to do?
Reminder: Be prepared
I’ve said that one of the most important aspects of living without an oracular technology device in your pocket is to be prepared.
In Portland, I have the number of a cab company saved in my phone. I know that I can get anywhere at any time with that alone if need be.
But in NYC? I never really took cabs when I lived there. You can hail a cab in NYC, but taxis are rarer in Brooklyn, and I didn’t want to stand outside waiting for what could have been a while.
I knew there had to be a way to call a cab, but I didn’t know what it was.
When you find yourself in a new place, having contact information for some kind of transportation is one of the first things to do. In retrospect, I should have had that on me.
But I didn’t. And so I did the next best thing: I asked.
The ask
I went up to the counter and asked: “How does one catch a cab in town these days?“
To eliminate the obvious response, I added: “I don’t have a smartphone and don’t have an Uber or Lyft account.“
This, perhaps understandably, stumped the young hip people of the diner. They thought for a minute and then said, “oh, actually I think there’s a car service around here. I know some people who use that. Let me see if I can find the number.“
A minute or so later, the person wrote down a number of a car service on a slip of paper. I thanked them and went off to call whoever it was.
A minute or two later, Mobil Car Service had an order in to take me home.
We went across town, plowing through Bushwick and Bed-Stuy and Park Slope, and when we got to my destination, the charge was $20. I paid with a card, and was on my way.
You can (still) get around
My point here, if I haven’t made it clear enough, is that, once again, you don’t need to use a smartphone to get around. Even when you are told that it’s the only way, it’s not. Sometimes it takes preparation, but when in doubt, all it takes is asking.
Remember that the next time you think that of course you need a smartphone, because how else would you get around? Or even, the next time you panic because your smartphone ran out of power and you feel totally stuck. You’re not.
