have heard horror stories about Uber pickups gone wrong. Mostly, I have heard of people accidentally hopping into strangers’ cars and getting yelled at. Welp, I’ve discovered a new ending to the story.

It was evening. It was freezing. I opened my uber app, and three clicks later Jeremy was on his way to get me in a Jeep.

A minute or two later my phone buzzed. So I pulled on my hood, strode boldly out of the Starbucks, and headed straight for the Jeep on the other side of the street.

I opened the door. No one inside.

And then the car alarm started.

Seven people turned around on the sidewalk and stared at me. I responded by hopping up and down in place and whisper-screaming “SHITTTTTT” as the car alarm continued to holler beside me. I didn’t want to look like I was trying to steal things from the car, so I decided that the least suspicious behavior would be to run into the CVS on the corner and loudly announce to the cashier that “There is a car on the corner and the alarm is going off!”

The cashier looked at me like this:

Then my Uber called me on the phone.

“Hi. I’m outside the Starbucks. I’m across the street from another Jeep whose car alarm is going off.”