**_Editor’s note:_** _Today, we take you on a journey in time two years ago—before face mask fashion came into its own and heading out of town didn’t brand you as a homicidal super-spreader. Ahead, dear reader, is a unique road-trip tale involving man’s best friend. In this quest to get an adorable puppy from Point A to Point B—and another back again—through all sorts of adversity, we contemplate the digital technology ecosystem while launching into the wild beyond._
_When this odyssey turns sideways, we run into some black metal Quebecois youth before experiencing the prehistoric landscapes of Utah. We reach for a ski town, completely unaware that in the not too distant future it will be forced to shut down due to a microscopic plague._
_The story begins as our correspondent recuperates from another pre-pandemic spectacle that seems so distant today—a magnificent drum n’ bass show populated by vigorous junglist masses honoring the creative longevity of the Metalheadz record label._
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There I was, sipping a glass of Peroni along the Sunset Strip, looking south towards the violet of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, regretting I hadn’t planned a proper Thanksgiving foray. The light smog gave the cityscape a gentle hug and brought out a twinkle in the West Hollywood lighting. I’d already partied on that Thursday, at an orchestral-quality jump-up drum n’ bass manifestation of DJ Goldie’s long-term utter dominance of that brash end of the broken-beat spectrum of electronic music. Now, after dozing most of the day off, it was Friday evening, and I was feeling quite myself again. I didn’t have to be on set for my background gig until Tuesday, and I was wondering if there might not be some way I could make a little extra cash in the meantime.
I began scrolling through the portal of a digital system I’d used before to help me navigate through time and space before, while yammering absentmindedly on my cellphone. My friend on the other end revealed he’d recently snapped up a condo at a Utah resort area. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be transported to a ski town, away from this static emptiness of Long-Weekend Los Angeles?” I thought. I wondered if there’s some way I could make that happen…
So I became more vigorous in monitoring shipment requests on the uShip goods delivery app. It’s like the Uber of long-haul trucking, and when you use it, you tend to end up meeting some damn interesting characters. If you’ve seen that show _Shipping Wars_, then you know what I’m talking about. I’d previously taken an arcade game to a collector in an Air Force town, brought furniture to a cult, and returned an antique coke machine to the locale where it once refreshed men working on atom bomb technology. Essentially, the company offers consumers the opportunity to undercut corporate shippers by taking on the risk of working with smaller operators, who are, in turn, all competing against each other through a brutal auction process. It’s a tough way to make a dime, but it can be a sweet way to cover your gas if you’re ever trying to get somewhere.
Delivering pets was always the Holy Grail, for me. I thought it would be great to bond with an adorable cat or dog, while avoiding the wear and tear you face when delivering heavy consumer and industrial goods. But due to a feature of the app, it can be particularly challenging to secure work. Because the company is so worried (rightfully so) that you might use their service as a way to source shipments offline—without uShip siphoning off its hefty cut—it's pretty strict about not allowing you to share contact info before a deal closes. This usually leads to a days-long back-and-forth about basic details, and ultimately results in most average folk gravitating towards picking users with dozens of pet shipments already under their belt to get Fluffy across state lines. It’s mesmerizing, to me, how a simple move, like this, by a tech company can have such a significant effect on human interactions. The promise is always there, scintillating somewhere in the distance, but the payoff is often much harder to grasp.
A couple long-distance pet deliveries caught my eye. One puppy needed a lift up to Aspen. And the owner of another required a trip for their dog down from Colorado Springs to Las Vegas. I’d already learned the hard way that you can waste a lot of time looking for gigs and not driving. So my strategy was to bid low, a hope to make up margin (in tips) on the back end. I figured I could take advantage of the fact I’d just slept through the afternoon to get a head start on my developing expedition by driving through the night. I was able to quickly lock down confirmations for both deliveries, plus there was always the possibility of finding extra stuff to haul in my empty truck bed along the way.
I blasted up the Hollywood Hills to Mulholland Drive, arriving at an impressive gated community along the ridgeline for the initial puppy handoff. There I met the young woman arranging the shipment, who I would only discover later had been dubbed a Rich Kid of Instagram (RKI) by a prominent hip-hop magazine. I was struck by the view her family’s wealth afforded – the San Fernando Valley's light pearl strings dangling from a graceful neckline formed by a cozy urban forest.
RKI introduced me to Raja, this three-month-old, 30-pound puppy, and told me another of her dogs had just died after getting hit by a car. Now, she was too distraught to take care of him, hence the dispatch to Colorado. I promised RKI I’d stop every two-to-three hours to give Raja walks and to let him use nature’s facilities. There was a brief panic when the dog escaped my grasp. The security guard must’ve been laughing his ass off as I raced across the entrance turnaround to get that delightful bundle of fur under control again.
Raja and I disappeared into the grinding churn of the Interstate night. Only then did it set in how painfully far away my goal actually was: about a thousand miles and at least 16 hours – and that was just to my Colorado midpoint. This stark reality alone, coupled with the fact I was admittedly still pretty exhausted from the previous night, led me to pull off the side of the road for some shut-eye in the middle of the desert. We continued on as dawn crept in.
The sun had just risen when my pickup sputtered to a halt, turning my truck into just another stationary object in the Mojave ecosystem. I was still a good hour from Las Vegas. I’d blown my clutch, though I didn’t know it yet. Semi-trucks whizzed by, inches from pulverizing me and the friendly Raja. Even though this boisterous Alaskan malamute with yellow fur wasn’t mine, I was already beginning to appreciate how he was helping me stay calm under exceptionally tense conditions. After all, I still had five states to get through, and the delivery was due in a matter of hours.
The garage where the tow truck deposited us wasn’t open, and since it was the end of the month and housing costs an-arm-and-a-leg in LA, funds were pretty tight. I realized if I could still pull off the deliveries somehow, I’d be able to scrape together enough to pay for the repair. I’d rustled up some cash for a rental, but I needed to find a way to Vegas. The bus didn’t stop in that Podunk town, and dogs aren’t allowed on board, anyways. We had to hitchhike.
I figured it would be easy, standing outside the nearby gas station with the insufferably cute Raja. Incorrect. I was offered a few greenbacks here and there, but nothing more. Hours passed. The solar rays intensified. Raja’s thick, Arctic-proof fur–ideal for Yukon dog sledding–was a deadly coating in the land of cacti and sagebrush. I kept heading to the restroom to get more water, and Raja would guzzle it down almost instantly, before sinking into the curbside, utterly deflated.
Laid bare was the distressing uselessness of modern tech in an emergency. We were cut off from the wider world, since my phone had died and I didn’t have my truck’s cigarette lighter socket to charge it anymore. The clerk ringing up the Thanksgiving gamblers—largely returning to LA after rapidly draining their finances in Vegas—let me charge my device, but the outlet didn’t seem to have much juice to offer. The few people bound for Nevada were in no mood to take us along. I started to get frustrated. Why was it up to me to get this dog to Aspen? Maybe I should head back instead? After a few hours in the torturous heat, I decided to give up. I scribbled the letters L and A, quickly fashioning a new hitchhiking sign. It was over.
Minutes later, a guy my age approached. “You need a ride?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “Are you going to LA?” No, he wasn't. “Actually, we’re heading to Las Vegas,” he replied. Success! The door to adventure had reopened. The deal was sealed when I discovered this group of Quebecois hippies had recently done a stint at the same DIY campground on Vancouver Island where I used to live. Just hours before, I’d even been editing a freestyle rap featuring another Francophone resident of that “ecovillage” who’d since passed away. I took it as a sign.
There were several of us–and three dogs total–crammed into the beat-up van blasting black metal from the speakers. The grinding rotors squeaked to a halt as we made a pit stop at a medical marijuana dispensary in a nondescript office plaza across the Nevada border. I worried how Raja would be with the gutter-punk pets. The dogs did come face-to-face for some non-violent “words” at one point.
We made it to Vegas, and I handed over the panhandling cash I’d rustled up earlier, as a thank-you gas money gift. I thought it was pretty ironic that a troupe of post-colonial voyageurs turned out to be the fail-safe switch for when platform capitalism falls short. I guess it just goes to show that, ultimately, it’s the strength of human connection that provides the lubrication for the gears of the “sharing economy.”
I kept details sparse when I phoned RKI. I told her there'd been a setback, but that I was handling it. I was expecting a torrent of angst. To my surprise, she didn’t seem too agitated. But she definitely wanted me in Aspen ASAP! I still had another dog to pick up, anyways. Plus, making it back for that acting cash would now be critical. I secured a Volkswagen Passat from a rental lot and peeled away as evening set in. The Trump Hotel had become a solid block of gold.
Up I-15 we floated, as the radio spectrum shifted to Disney Pop, Contemporary Christian and New Country. We crossed the Muddy River, passed through Mesquite, and wound along the Virgin River Gorge in Arizona. I stopped just across the Utah line, to give Raja a chance to pee and stretch his legs. The air was crisp and, to my surprise, there was even a light dusting of snow. Already, the pummeling heat of the desert was a distant memory. Onward we went...
I was getting pretty tired – you know, after all the panhandling, black metal headbanging and used car selecting – so eventually I had to give in to the urge to pause. When I stepped out of the car, I found the ever-ebullient Raja and I had emerged in a peculiar blue-and-black moonscape somewhere past Black Dragon Canyon. It was freezing and I hadn’t thought to grab blankets out of my truck. I was sure glad Raja was there to keep me warm. It was eerily quiet as we drifted off to sleep. Below lay juniper trees extending for miles to sandstone walls dotted with 1,500-year-old petroglyphs.
We were welcomed to Colorado by a thick carpet of fresh snow. Raja was overjoyed! It was like watching a fish being released into the ocean. He ran full-tilt, this way and that, soaking it all in. He was made for this, after all. I sympathized with him. It had been almost a year since my white Canadian ass had seen a proper batch of snow.
The last leg of the first delivery proved the most treacherous. The snow had melted and frozen, forming a Red Bull Crashed Ice-type winding route on the homestretch to Aspen. Luckily, I first learned to drive on ice roads. Excitement was building with the shoulder season ending and ski bums flowing back for the winter as we slid into town. Part of me wanted to just cancel the second delivery, forget about my truck in the Mojave, and leave SoCal behind entirely. I still sometimes wonder if I should have taken this idea more seriously.
Aspen’s quaint downtown was all powdered up and unblemished as residents awoke. Raja dragged me towards a small breakfast spot, where I appreciated a hearty diner meal to break up my gas station snack diet. I called the delivery contact, and she came right down. That’s when I learned I was actually reuniting Raja with his previous owner. I’d caught her just on the way to work, she said, so I’d have to bring the dog to her house across town. But she was kind enough to let me crash at her place for a few hours to catch up on some shuteye.
When she returned from work, she started prepping for a snowy hike and wished me luck getting paid. “Luck getting paid? Why would I need that?” I asked, startled. Turned out, the last guy who’d worked with RKI had been calling, distraught, trying to find a way to get his money. My heart sunk. I had just assumed I was getting paid on delivery. I knew, since uShip only facilitates the transactions, they’d wash their hands of responsibility (this later proved to essentially be the case). I had to leave right away! I had a long road ahead if I wanted a hope in hell of seeing my earnings. At first, I was pretty sad to leave Raja, but I knew that he was in a much better place due to of my efforts.
I had to make an hour-long detour around Denver through spooky back woods to dodge a suburban freeway pileup. The house I was directed to was dark when I arrived. Fortunately, the next contact was still awake, and I was introduced to a lively German shepherd pup. I loaded the dog, fueled up, grabbed some blankets, and began the return voyage.
I proceeded in fits and starts, leaving the highway every few exits to stave off fatigue. Eventually the driving stretches got longer. Before I knew it, I was in Nevada, watching the woman working the gas station till engrossed in the play-by-play of a manhunt on a handheld police scanner. It sounded like someone had escaped from prison. I made it back to Vegas, dropped off the dog, and secured payment for that delivery. I even got a nice tip, and an all-important positive review.
Instead of giving the rental vehicle back right away, I decided to hang onto it for a few extra days. Since the money had still not appeared in my account yet, the truck repair would have to wait. I made it to LA just in time for my scene in a soon-to-be Emmy-nominated show. I was feeling pretty method, since my character was dealing with another kind of breakdown. That night I checked again and found I still hadn’t been paid for shipping Raja. And now RKI had gone radio silent.
The next day, on the set of an ABC show, I began to do some research. This is when I started to freak out. It became crystal clear how adept tech companies have become at sidestepping any sort of legal accountability when things go wrong in these kinds of situations. And I found reports of all sorts of questionable puppy-trade practices by the shipper. I even learned her dad was one of the richest people in the world, and someone who’d been accused of a multi-million-dollar corporate swindle. I couldn’t help but wonder if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I even turned up a passport fraud report seemingly involving her mother.
Once I was cut for the day, I blasted Real 92.3’s blend of Migos, Drake and Cardi B, as I twisted my way up Beverly’s elegant Hills. I tried calling RKI again as I arrived at her parents’ gated community. Nothing. I felt powerless. However, these were business people after all, and this _was_ business. I figured, if I could just somehow manage to get a message into the compound, maybe they would understand.
Suddenly, I had a brainwave: I decided to approach the security hut. There seemed to be a flicker of recognition in the guard's eyes. I was the guy chasing Raja just a few days ago, remember? He wouldn’t let me talk to the family directly, but he would give them a ring. When he said he had RKI’s mom on the line, he allowed me to speak into the receiver: “I got Raja to Aspen safely!” I pleaded. “I did the job within the original timeframe! Can you believe your daughter hasn’t paid me yet?! Wouldn’t it be right for her to compensate me?!?!”
I twisted my way down the canyons, unsure if my gambit would have any effect whatsoever. I pulled into a nondescript parking lot, dejected. But then, minutes later, the payment—minus uShip’s take, of course—appeared in my account. Tah-dah! The facts I’d crammed into my brain earlier began to distill. Ultimately, her dad had settled the lawsuit (for millions) and didn’t have to admit wrongdoing. And her mom hadn’t perpetrated passport fraud. In fact, she’d been the victim of the crime. A woman had stolen her identity and rang up hefty bills on her Neiman Marcus credit account. I imagined a scene, straight out of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, where the matron yells at her spoiled daughter to get her shit together and pay a contractor, after forming a bond with the delivery boy over a shared sense of digital-era shattered trust.
I ended up towing my truck back to LA myself, since I'd found a much cheaper garage in Koreatown. Of course, I didn’t even come close to breaking even when all was said and done. My already shaky optimism in the promise of tech solutions was definitely shattered further by this harrowing ordeal. I refused to do any more business through that app for a long time. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I finally got over it and agreed to take a big hunk of wood from the West Coast to Washington D.C. By then the world had changed, and the vast majority of attractions in the nation's capital had shut down. Even though a museum named after the dad of the woman who got me to ship Raja was one of the few spots open during coronavirus restrictions, I still couldn’t bring myself to visit.
And as I write this, two years on, I like to imagine Raja is out there in the Colorado mountains somewhere, frolicking in a novel layer of powder, as the world plans its own fresh start.
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