Thread by @GailSimone

Okay, here it is, at long last…

…the UBER GUY STORY.

1/

Okay, here’s the set-up. I was in invited to a lovely con in Harrogate, UK. They also set up an event, a talk/interview, at Leeds Arts University, so they flew us in early (we love both cities), and we needed to transfer at some point.

2/

So we made a reservation on my iPad for an Uber drive, and we were looking forward to it, hoping to see the English countryside and maybe go on a Doctor Who-style adventure.

3/

The driver shows up, I’m not going to say his name, but he’s a very nice looking middle-aged gentleman, family from Pakistan but born in Leeds, so very much a local and proud of his city. We liked him immediately and he was very helpful with our bags, heavy with books.

4/

Now, some of you are going to be familiar with what I’m going to say here.

But me, I was not.

Holy shit.

Holy, holy shit shit.

5/

This is me, even days later.

6/

All right, so we are leaving Leeds, passing beautiful farms and green hills, the gentleman is lovely to talk to. Someone we get on the subject of comics, I think we must have told him we were there for a con. He said he didn’t read Western comics but had read Beano, etc.

7/

BUT! Oh, boy, he had a LOT to say about Marvel and DC films, a lot of stuff I agreed with, too, some less so, but was very animated about them. He said Avengers: Infinity War was his favorite of the MCU. He liked Black Adam but had never heard of him before.

8/

He said a thing that a lot of comic fans have said, that having Black Adam takes away a bit of Superman’s unique position I. The DCU, and now there were too many ultra-powerful heroes/villains in the films and it made the DCU feel less compelling.

Again, did not read comics.

9

He said his kids and grandkids and wife all watched the movies too, and also the tv MCU tv shows.

He said an odd thing, he said he liked Jason Momoa as Aquaman but he saw a video that made him like him less. No idea what he was talking about. Anyone know?

10/

ANYWHO. he started getting REALLY into the subject. He said he liked Ms. Marvel, did NOT like She-Hulk (he said it was pointless), and that he loved Loki, both in the movies and the series. Loki was his favorite.

I was having a nice time, I’m always up for this chat.

11/

Also, my experiences with Jason Momoa were uniformly positive, he seemed like a very decent dude and I spent a couple weeks with him, talking over a bunch of topics. Don’t know what our driver was on about.

My husband goes silent for some reason but I didn’t notice.

12/

Then the conversation somehow goes on to the Queen. I mentioned that even some of our Brit friends who do not like the monarchy were sometimes sad about it. She’d just been around for so long, it was an odd feeling for them.

He says, ‘I have a different feeling about it.’

13/

Now, far be it from me to judge how this man feels about the Queen, that’s not what this is about.

He says, “See, they had her laying on a blanket covered with Masonic symbols, and an upside-down cross.”

I’m still like…

14/

Then he says, that on national television, the last thing they did was the ‘broke her wand’ and placed the pieces by her.

‘Broke her wand?’

Okay, what do I know? Maybe she had a…wand. For…reasons.

I don’t know! But I’m listening!

15/

Then he helpfully adds that people don’t know the true history of the monarchy, and that for hundred of years, they drank the blood of children and ate babies, and that there were videos of the aristocracy admitting it.

Also, I am being told the wand thing is sort of true.

16/

AND THIS ISN’T THE WEIRD PART.

17/

So at this point, we are somewhere between nowhere and the moors where the Americans got attacked by that werewoof and I am thinking, huh, what a super-pleasant-and-non-creepy ride.

We know there is a lot of *&^%ed up stuff in the palace history, but…

I MEAN.

18/

Then he asks how long our flights are, we tell him, and that it’ll take even longer to get back home because we’re traveling East to West.

He pauses, as if considering, and says, “it’s not true, you know.’

And @rocketspouse who is quicker than me about this, says…

19/

“Are you a Flat-Earther?”

And he says, “Yes.”

Oh, for the love of crap, let me out, I’ll go live in the forest making clay pots out of pig offal

20/

Now, let me give THIS bit of wonderful context. I had just the previous DAY been in a writer’s room with a great writer who had researched a book going undercover on conspiracy people. He said, without question, the ‘most psychotic by far’ were Flat Earthers.

Niceness.

21/

Hey, @BadAstronomer, you out there?

I cannot begin to explain how goddamn weird this was. He would say a ‘fact,’ we would say, that’s not true and here’s why, and instead of acknowledging it, he would move on to the next fact.

Guys, I thought I knew what they believe.

22/

For example…let’s play a game of DID YOU KNOW?

Maybe people think, ‘okay, they believe this goofy thing, big deal.’

Except now. It’s way more than that.

For example DID YOU KNOW…

23/

…that there are no photos of Earth except for the doctored ones from NASA?

…that no man has been to the moon and no astronaut has ever said, on film, that they had?

Think that’s weird (and patently false)?

Oh, baby, we’re just getting warmed UP.

24/

Did you ALSO know that…

The flat Earth is surrounded by a wall of ice that is impenetrable?

And that’s what Antarctica is, which has also never been filmed?

And beyond that there is vast, unexplored land?

That’s second gear. Hold on.

25/

He said that we are under a dome, and one day, it will crack.

‘What happens then,’ I asked, because god help me, I couldn’t stop myself.

We drown.

The dome holds back all the water that we are buried under.

26/

Hubby says, ‘but we know the moon is 250,000 miles away, and the sun is—‘

Driver says, ‘the same. The sun and the moon are the same distance.’

“You know we’d be burnt to ash, right,’ says hubby.

‘That’s what they say.’

27/

We talk about the astronauts beyond NASA, the cosmonauts and taikonauts. We mention there are photos of the Earth all over the place. Not only does he not listen, it’s like they bounce off his head like Nerf darts, and HE CAN’T STOP.

Also, water not rising flat is proof.

28/

By which he meant, ‘why doesn’t water rise up away from the Earth if we are spinning so fast?’

I said, for the same reason humans don’t go flying into the dome and crack it.

This is not well received.

29/

I’m almost done, there is a special weird bonus thing that WE did that I don’t understand at all, so hang on just a bit for that and maybe you can explain it to me.

Okay. So.

Cannonballs.

Everything is proven by cannonballs, he says.

30/

See, the proof is, if you fire a cannon in all directions, they cannonballs will go the same distance.

Which, if we are traveling at a thousand miles an hour, they shouldn’t do.

BUSTED, SCIENCE.

Centuries of learning, you SUCK.

31/

I cannot say enough that we are in the back of a car with a guy we don’t know in the middle of nothing and very far from home and we COULD go back to talking about She-Hulk but NO WE CAN’T.

And it hits me.

Hates She-Hulk, loves Loki…huh.

32/

It just seems odd, this Falt Earth guy had been spouting some of the same stuff the angry habitual crybabies make endless videos about.

@rocketspouse grinned at me and said, ‘Ask him about Brie Larson.’

I took a pass.

But it’s interesting. Maybe unrelated.

33/

Okay, here is what we did.

We got to the hotel, got our bags. Said thank you for an interesting trip.

And gave him a five star review.

And a ridiculously generous tip.

Why…fair question.

34/

Maybe because people are entitled to their opinions, maybe because a working man did his job very well and doesn’t need to be stiffed by two snobby skeptical yanks, or maybe because it was creepy as f*** and a little bit we didn’t want him to follow us home and murder us.

35/

But you guys.

He’s out there.

He has some things to tell you.

Important things.

Vital things.

UBER THINGS.

end!

Uber

Uber

BEHIND YOU.