05/06/2025
Last week, Uber charged me $85 for a ride in Baltimore that should’ve cost $20, so I figured it was time to give Lyft another shot. Today, after checking out of my hotel in Oklahoma, I called a Lyft and got picked up by Mike, a guy in a red F-150 work truck. The bed was full of tools and lumber. I hopped into the passenger seat.
“How far to the airport?” I asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” he said. “You in a hurry?”
“Not really. You?”
“Never.”
We cruised down the highway in the slow lane. I asked if carpentry was his main line of work.
“Among other things,” he said.
“Jack of all trades?”
“Maybe. Back in the seventies, I was a plumber’s helper. Did heating and air for a while.”
“How was that?”
“Hot and cold,” he said, deadpan.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking. He had a Midwestern drawl and a poker face.
“After that, I got into carpentry—started with trim, moved to framing. Eventually built custom cabinets in fancy houses. Learned staircases, furniture. Did pretty good.”
“You retired now?”
“Nope. I build campers.”
“Campers?”
“Small ones you can tow anywhere—teardrop trailers. Got popular during lockdowns. I build ’em by hand, one at a time.”
“How’s the quality?”
“Pretty good.”
“Got a website?”
“Sure. Gotta have a website these days.”
“What’s it called?”
“Mike’s Pretty Good Campers.”
I paused. “That’s really the name?”
“I like to manage expectations,” he said.
“Under promise, over deliver?”
“Exactly.”
“That what you were doing before picking me up?”
“Yup. Got frustrated. Don’t like to work frustrated. So I step away.”
“To drive strangers to the airport?”
“Never too frustrated to drive. Besides, we ain’t strangers no more, are we?”
“No,” I said. “We’re not.”
As we got close to the airport, I asked if he was headed back to work afterward.
“Haven’t decided. Depends how I feel in a few minutes.”
Before getting out, I said, “If I like your website, mind if I share it on Facebook? I’ve got some followers who might want a pretty good camper from a quasi-retired carpenter who moonlights with Lyft when he’s frustrated.”
“Can’t hurt,” he said. “Once people see these trailers, they fall in love. There’s even teardrop trailer conventions—thousands show up. You wouldn’t believe how they decorate ’em.”
“Mike,” I said, “I’ll believe just about anything these days.”
At the curb, he unloaded my bags and asked, “Have I driven you before? You look familiar.”
“I don’t think so. I’d remember,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Was it okay?”
“It was a pretty good lift,” I said.
Somewhere behind his mustache, I think he smiled. I walked into Will Rogers Airport, boarded my flight, and immediately searched to see if Mike’s Pretty Good Campers was a real thing.
Credit: Respective owner
