I’ve driven for Uber for almost eight and a half years. This next story may very well be the strangest one of all.
Janet slid into the back seat of my car. My app told me that we would spend about an hour together. Our conversation started with the usual back and forth about where we were from, what type of work we’ve done, and who we’ve spent our lives with.
“I’ve made my living mostly in real estate,” she said. “I was one of the top Realtors in California years ago. I sold more than $75,000,000 worth of homes in one year.”
I had sold real estate in Mobile back in the 90s. I would have had to sell half of Mobile to reach that production level.
Somehow, we began talking about dogs and cats. That’s when the conversation started to veer.
“I’m a cat person,” she said. “The difference between cat owners and dog owners is that if you were in a flood, a cat owner would never let go of her cat. A dog owner would abandon the dog.” (I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s her story.)
“I made over $450,000.00 selling cats in conjunction with my real estate business in Texas.”
Janet continued talking as though she hadn’t said anything unusual.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Can you go back to the thing about the cats and $450,000.00? I’m a little confused.”
“I raise cats. I buy homes and properties that are undervalued. Then, I breed specialty cats in the homes. Once I’ve made money from selling these beautiful cats, I refurbish and sell the homes. I often clear a few hundred thousand dollars in profit on the properties alone.”
My head was spinning.
“How much are these cats?”
She pulled out her phone and began showing me pictures of the cats. I don’t know much about cat breeds, but these looked very fancy.
“I usually get about $2,500.00 for each kitten. I have a website with pictures of the kittens. I added pictures of exotic rabbits and a miniature horse to my site. I don’t actually sell those, but it dramatically increased the traffic to my site.”
Out of more than 19,000 Uber riders, this is my first cat/real estate salesperson. But we weren’t finished. She began to talk about her marriage.
“My husband and I own a lot of properties, as you can imagine. Years ago, we hired a housekeeper. She was excellent and was a huge help to me during Covid. When we took her in, I wasn’t worried because she was older and not all that pretty.”
She showed me her picture. Honestly, she didn’t look as bad as Janet described.
“I found out later that she and my husband were having an affair. She and her family were heavily involved in meth!”
“I found out from her sister-in-law that my husband was having an affair with the housekeeper.”
(Then Janet mentioned something about someone killing someone over drugs in the housekeeper’s family or friends. I apologize for not getting the details. I was still trying to keep my bulging eyes on the road!)
We reached her gated driveway. I want you to understand that I told her I write blogs and that my book was coming out soon. I explained that the stories came from my riders. She insisted that I write this story. She told me she wanted to write a book.
As I mentioned, we had reached our destination. However, she wasn’t through and wouldn’t leave the car.
“My husband’s mistress tried to kill me,” she said. “My husband would send her to feed me when I went through Covid. It turns out that she was feeding me poison.”
She ripped off her wig and showed me the damaged hair below to prove her point.
“I wear a wig everywhere now. You can see why!”
I asked her, “I might write about your experience. Would that be ok with you?”
“I want you to write it. That way, they’ll know who to blame if anything happens to me!”
I had another ride pending, so I told her I had to leave. She finally exited the car.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said.
“No,” I thought, “Thank you for the ride!”
***
(Please stay in touch. I’ll be releasing my book soon. I’ll let you know as soon as I have the information. I appreciate your support! If the book does well, the story above will be in the follow-up edition.)
Thanks, and God Bless,
Tommy