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.
![](http://smartphonefreelife.com/wp-content/uploads/champsdiner.jpg)
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?
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