It was Saturday night in November and I was getting ready to go to a concert and write a review. I spent way too long picking out an outfit and doing my hair and makeup. It took forever, but eventually I was able to make it out of my apartment and into a Lyft. I had to take a Lyft even though I did not plan on drinking because I do not drive and I was going alone. Both of these are facts that will become relevant all too quickly.
The drive was decent but pretty long. About five minutes away from the venue I wondered to myself if there was an opening act. I couldn’t remember seeing that there was one, but I am a forgetful sort of person. I pulled out my phone to check. I was already on the venue website from checking their bag policy earlier that evening. I clicked on the event listing the concert I was trying to see to get a closer look. That is the moment I spotted it.
Underneath the details for the show was a small location icon. Next to it? The name of an entirely different venue. It was being sponsored by the venue whose website I was on at an entirely different location forty minutes drive back the way I came.
There was nothing to be done about the fact that I failed a simple reading comprehension test, because the Lyft was coasting to a stop. I got out and thanked the driver and wandered as though dazed to the nearest bench. I sat down to rethink my life choices. I very quickly came to the conclusion that biting the bullet and going back to the other venue was the only option. I would be unfashionably late, but at least I would be there. This is when the second problem of the night hit me. Every Lyft back the way I had just traveled, for the distance I had just traveled, was close to a hundred dollars. I was ready to make the financial sacrifice to fix my mistake, but not when the financial sacrifice was so much higher than on the way there.
I was upset, but mostly just confused. How was it possible that the same distance could cost so much more? The answer was simple. A football game between Duke and UNC Chapel Hill was going on in the area, so traffic was at a stand still. I also found myself at a stand still. I was at an impasse. If I were to sit on the bench in the dark parking lot my phone would probably die before the Lyft prices dropped again, but I didn’t know the area, so I had no clue what would even be open or what was around. Then I remembered I live in the United States, which means I am never far from a fast food place.
Carrboro is a nice place with lots of things to do, but I don’t know directions very well at the best of times in the daylight, so I figured my best option was to pick a direction and start walking until I found something akin to the tell-tale golden arches.
It did not take me long to find a Wendy’s with a line wrapped around the building and a blissfully peaceful and empty dining area. I ordered my requisite frosty and fries in exchange for a place to sit and charge my phone. I figured by now with how far I had walked I surely must be away from the epicenter of it all. I opened Lyft and scanned my options. The time was now 8:54, and the concert started at 8PM. I wanted desperately to still go and see even half of the show but I knew by time I managed to find a ride there, took the forty minutes to get there, and got inside, the show would be practically over. Now I just wanted to find a ride home. Victory!
Prices were way down, from almost a hundred dollars to just a hair over thirty dollars. I could wait for my phone to charge and eat my frosty in peace and quiet knowing that despite the mistakes made, I would get home at a reasonable time. It took me all of ten minutes to eat my food and open the Lyft app again, this time prepared to actually purchase my ride now that my sweet treats were consumed.
Prices jumped from thirty dollars to over sixty dollars in the time it had taken me to eat a small chocolate frosty. I wanted to throw my phone on the ground and fall to my knees to curse the name of whoever came up with surge pricing. I did not do that though, as the employees of Wendy’s probably had enough things to worry about without hearing my howls over injustice exacted on me via dynamic pricing.
I decided to keep walking, as the Wendy’s was soon to close. It took me a while to find another place that I actually cared to set foot in, but when I did I was greeted by a wonderful atmosphere. There were dimmed lights in the front room of this bar where there was a live band playing. The band was playing music clearly inspired by country and bluegrass, with one member on an impressive instrument held in his lap that I later learned was a steel guitar. They’re not normally what I write about, review, or listen to, but nothing on this night was planned out very far. I was open minded to any music that fell my way, and their energy was infectious.
The whole band had an undeniable chemistry, with them being able to rotate between who was the lead singer like it was nothing at all. I learned that the band was called “The Rattletraps” and that this was not their full roster of members. They had been working on a music video prior to this show, so many of their crew were understandably too tired to play. I was interested in hearing what their full group sounded like, and they kindly invited me to a show of theirs that was happening the next weekend.
So while my original plans for a story and for a band to write about were dashed against the rocks by my own inattentive reading, a new window was opened for me by the end of the night and I intended to boost myself up and through it. This misadventure was worth it in the end.