Free UberX Week =’s Adventures
For those of you that don’t know, there is this service called Uber. Initially, it started out as a black car service. You download the Uber app, request pickup, a cab arrives and takes you to your destination and then the whole thing is charged directly to your credit card. It’s fast, convenient and tip is already included. The drivers will often give you snacks or free water because you rate their level of service after each ride you take. The catch is, they also rate you as a customer. Anyone who falls below the appropriate rating gets blacklisted.
They just started a service called UberX that is supposedly cheaper than cabs. To promote it, they were offering free rides from Tuesday to Thursday this week. To celebrate this, a couple of friends and I decided to have an adventure.
This monster of a drink does the job right
Stop 1: Canon
Since it was our first stop, the plan was to eat dinner and then move on to the next location. We did eat dinner, however, we also thought it would be a great idea to order a $95 cocktail punch bowl which was basically rums, champagne and a bunch of citrus. I think it packed the punch of a light long island iced tea. By the time the five of us finished the punch bowl, we were already drunk.
What do you do when five people have to split a large check? Credit card roulette, of course!
The concept is simple: put one credit card per person into a hat, shake and have the waitress draw them out one at a time. The last person’s card is the card that pays.
Seeing as it was a $200 bill, I was incredibly relieved to see my card come out first.
Stop 2: Bathtub Gin
I somehow managed to get in an argument with the mixologist about the gluten contents of certain alcohols as soon as we were ordering our first drink and he instantly didn’t like me. I blame the $95 punch bowl.
The drinks here were stupid delicious, even if the bartender, I mean mixologist, didn’t like me.
I think we all had three drinks before we finally decided to move onto our next location. Once again, it was time for credit card roulette. We called over the mixologist and he got a certain sort of pleasure pulling my credit card out last. I had to pay for the whole $140 bill.
My mojito at Bathtub Gin
Evidently, the mixologist was so tickled by our game that he decided to buy us shots. He came over with a tray of six shots of Jack Daniels because he “likes any form of gambling” and our game of credit card roulette was “awesome.”
He took a shot with the five of us and walked away. That’s when I noticed one of our Party of 5 didn’t take his shot. We inquired why and then someone got impatient and tried to take his shot for him. He grabbed his shot back and threw it back. Instantly he turned green. I was convinced he was going to puke all over the wall.
After slapping him a couple of times (seriously, whiskey slap is also a game and is a great chaser), I realized he wasn’t going to be able to keep it all together. We rushed out and as soon as he got out the door, he projectile vomited in the alleyway. Supposedly, he never handles Jack Daniels well but didn’t want to tell the group. He tried to just tough it out but his body won with its visceral reaction. As soon as he returned to us, we were off to stop three (our mission was not deterred).
Stop 3: Alibi Room
This was late enough in the night that we had another meal. I made the mistake of inviting a friend to meet us there and I’m sure she was shocked to see how drunk we all were. Again, I blame the punch.
The man who couldn’t handle his shot of Jack Daniels picked up this bill, probably to regain some dignity.
Then we Uberx’d home for FREE. We managed to go all around downtown Seattle without paying for a single ride. It was glorious. I should note, however, besides the two people who paid nothing all night, those of us that paid for any of the bills probably spent significantly more than we would have had Uber not offered the free rides. I’d say the plan backfired but it was entirely too much fun.