Ok, I called an Uber early morning. I am watching out window. App says he is here but I cant see the car. I walk out front and a car, missing a rear hubcap, parked almost next door. Check licence plate, yes, its him, but my instincts dont feel right. I jump in back seat and state: my house is next door, as I point backwards. He says, hmm, close enough.

I ask him to take the coast road route, not the map via freeway. It’s always super clogged busy in peak morning times. He seems rattled. Greatly bothered. I say no, not turn left at every left turn.

Then it starts. The twenty question routine. But why? I am an older man being picked up to go to medical appointment by Uber, not family.

The twenty questions I have seen many times:

• how long you live here? I say why do you want to know?
• you have wife? Yes, I say, most people have one
• no children? Huh, why do you think that?

And on it goes until he starts giving me sob stories about the poverty in another country. I start texting. Uber driver driving me nuts.

I wonder did he expect to inherit my house at the end of all this.