I should have known today would be a weird day after I woke up from that dream I had about Rudy Guiliani.

I was driving around him and his blonde mistress, (I don’t remember her contributing anything to the dream, so I don’t know why she was there. I don’t even like blondes. I mean in a sexual way, of course. Some are quite nice when you get to know them on a collegial level.), and I was patiently explaining to him, step-by-step, how his support of Donald Trump was an implicit support of fascism. He didn’t say much but he nodded thoughtfully throughout my speech, which is how I know he was really listening to me. He listened to me so intently that we were late to my softball game. (Hi. My name is Laurie and I have a deep-seeded insecurity about being ignored. I’m quite possibly the only person who thinks Glenn Close’s character was the good guy in Fatal Attraction. I mean, sure, she shouldn’t have boiled that rabbit but give her a break. People eat rabbit all the time. It’s not as if she boiled a puppy alive. In any event, I quote “I won’t be ignored, Dan,” more frequently than I’d like to admit, and I’m only half-joking when I do it. She’s also blonde. Hmm. You’ve stopped listening, haven’t you? Dammit.)

I felt weird when the memory of the dream washed over me in the gray dawn light. Not horrified, like the day I awoke from the dream in which I had sex with Donald Trump, mind you, but I felt a bit off. To my waking knowledge, I never dream about Rudy Guiliani, and I certainly have no desire to redeem, reeducate, or reform him. He’s a prick with more skeletons in his closet than <frantically searches my brain for a witty comparison> a man who sells skeletons for a living and has a surplus that won’t fit on the showroom floor. <Good One!>

But, in hindsight, it certainly was an appropriate way to start my day.

When my girlfriend broke up with me in November, I signed up as an Uber driver to help cover my living expenses. According to the data on the app, I have performed 744 trips since then. Today, at 3:44pm, I accepted a ride from a Q believer and so now my dream about Rudy Guiliani makes total sense.

(Editor’s Note: Please let me be perfectly clear–Laurie does not believe that her dream about Rudy Guiliani is in any way associated with the lunatic she picked up at 3:44pm.)

I didn’t realize that DJ–not his real name–was a Q believer when he first stepped into my car because, of course, how could I?

The first few minutes of our trip started off typically enough. I picked him up from a retirement home in Lititz, Pennsylvania. He works there. In the medical field. It is his first job in the medical profession, he told me. He used to work in restaurants. He didn’t elaborate on what his job title was and I didn’t ask. I assumed he was a CNA. He was hired there right before the pandemic hit.

As we drove towards his home in the city, huge black storm clouds shadowed the horizon behind us. We made small talk about how lucky he felt to be missing the storm. The storm was, in fact, the reason he hailed an Uber instead of waiting for the bus. Since he was riding away from it, he thought he might even be able to make a run to the grocery store before the rain clouds drenched his neighborhood.

Little did I realize that the storm on the horizon forfended something even more ominous. (Is “forfended” even a word? Forfuckit, it’s staying.)

I listened to him describe, for several minutes, how strangely his body reacts to changes in humidity. It was during this exchange that I began to pick up on his unusually hyper energy. He spoke thru his mask and with his arms and hands. I could discern that he was tapping out a rhythm on his knees with his fingertips and palms with every word that he uttered. He seemed to be shuffling in the back seat. He did not appear capable of sitting still. I didn’t feel threatened or alarmed; it was simply impossible to ignore that the vibe he was giving off was atypical from people just getting off work. Even then, I had no idea of what was coming.

He told me the story of how his legs simply stopped working as he was mowing his lawn over the weekend. I commented and exclaimed gently, as one would when being told by a complete stranger that the humidity made pushing a lawnmower virtually impossible. He told me how he experiences carpal tunnel syndrome during the changing of the seasons–but only when the seasons change! Like, right now, his arms are fine. But from winter to spring? His arms go numb when he sleeps. Oh, okay. Wow. You’re a regular human barometer.

Then, about 8 minutes into the trip, he asks me how I am doing. You know, driving. With the virus. I told him that it has been steady, I’ve been driving since December but I took two months off, yada yada yada. It’s a shame how messed up they have been about the virus, he says. I just saw something last week that the CDC released saying that the mortality rate was 0.0004%.

Oh, good Lord, I think.

Through the six month career I’ve had as an Uber driver, I have had an overwhelming number of positive interactions. Most people are kind, thoughtful, and considerate. Not everyone talks with me during the course of their fare, but many that do have incredibly moving stories to tell. I told a customer as much recently, a curious young Amish man. I told him 99.999% of my interactions have been very good. Well, the Fates must have perked up at that one when it filtered into the ether and, bored with the lockdown, they must have decided to fuck with my ratio for kicks. Because this week I have encountered a lot of virus-deniers. Before the pandemic, it seemed rare to encounter a Trump supporter. Now, emboldened perhaps by the president’s rhetoric, I’ve had to patiently deal with three or four people who think the lockdown was all overblown.

But DJ.

DJ, who works at a retirement home, was telling me that the CDC just released information that stated the mortality rate of this disease was 0.0004%. He referred to the CDC *and* he quoted a number as if it were a true statistic. I could not simply ignore that. Because, as I may have mentioned earlier, DJ works at a retirement home with the elderly.

I did not, at this point, realize that I was talking with a Q believer. I thought I was talking to your average American idiot.

I took a breath and replied, “It’s interesting that you mentioned the mortality rate, because when you take the number of confirmed cases and divide it by the number of deaths, you get a mortality rate of something over 5.0%.”

He paused for all of about two seconds, completely dismissed what I told him, and proceeded to launch into a diatribe that I don’t even see on Twitter because I block people and bots like him. And he was in my car. Leaning forward towards me in my backseat. Becoming more and more animated with every point he wanted to make with me. And he wanted to make a lot of points.

11 minutes to go.

Oh, that’s what the media wants you to believe.

>Well, the medical experts, you mean. Not the media.

Oh, which experts? The ones like Fauci? The man in 2007 who said that hydrochloroquine was a great drug?

>Well, an effective drug for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis and malaria, yes.

Where did you hear that? And before you tell me about the couple in Arizona with the hydrochloroquine, that the media has been using as a way to discredit the drug, let me tell you something about her. That so-called Trump supporter is a life-long Democrat who donates to Democratic causes and who is now being investigated for murdering her husband.

(I didn’t actually respond to this because at this point not only could I not get a word in edgewise, but I have always been suspicious of the woman in Arizona whose husband died from ingesting the fish cleaner. I mean, my first thought was that she probably murdered the sonofabitch. But, then again, I watch a lot of Forensic Files and I’m pretty sure this method of execution has been covered in like four separate episodes. Irregardless! I did actually respond.)

>I don’t get my information about hydrocholoroquine from the story of the couple in Arizona. I hear about studies.

What studies?

>Studies done, you know, at the VA, in France…they are learning that the drug is deadly.

The government and the media, they all lie. They all lie.

>So, who tells the truth then, DJ? Only Trump, I guess?

(This is where I learned he was a Q believer.)

When did I say I believed Trump? I am not a Trump supporter. I am a Q believer. You need to open your eyes.

He then began peppering the conversation with every QAnon conspiracy theory that we have ever heard–except Pizzagate. Guess they’re embarrassed by that one–and some that were new to me.

Bill Gates held a conference in October about pandemics. Go check it out. Gates, Soros, from October 7-15. Section 215. Look it up. Plandemic. Look it up. I get so many emails a day, I do my research.

He also mentioned the media again, and described how they wear masks for the cameras but if you turn the camera on the crew, they’re not wearing masks. They’re not wearing masks!

At this point, I grew exasperated.

>So what? If someone is or isn’t wearing a mask in the media…so what? What’s the conspiracy, DJ? What are they trying to do? How is that controlling us?

I can’t remember his answer, but that might have been when he jumped into Russiagate, Obamagate, oh the truth will come out, just wait. It’s all going to come out in a few months. You’ll see. Your illegitimate candidate, Biden, he did perform pay-for-play, he’s corrupt.

10 minutes to go.

Ha, I’m kidding–the ride was almost over at that point. It was an endless stream of nonsensical bullshit. Did I mention that, earlier in the conversation he told me he had been a “lifelong Democrat,” as if that would somehow shield him from being considered insane?

It was relentless, rapid-fire insanity.

I wish I had been less confrontational with him. I wish I had been more blandly curious, asked more questions about his thinking instead of challenging him so directly. But a mere 12 hours earlier, I had very effectively persuaded Rudy Guiliani not to support Donald Trump so I was like I got this. That and no one who works directly with the elderly during a global pandemic of a novel coronavirus should ever be able to walk around unchallenged saying the mortality rate is 0.0004%. But I don’t do well with illogical insanity. It disturbs me deeply. It took me over 40 years to watch Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland again because as a child it terrified me. And even though, when I watched it as an adult, I realized that it wasn’t nearly as mind-wrenching as I thought it was going to be, I haven’t watched it since. It’s very important to me that Things Make Sense. It doesn’t take a super genius to suspect that need stems from chaotic, disruptive upbringing. Of course it does, but that’s hardly the point. The point is that I lose my shit when I’m around irrational people. And you could not string anything DJ said together in any semblance of logic. He simply knew that things were Bad. And it will all make sense in a few months when the arrests happen.

So, when the arrests happen in a few months, just know that DJ gave us the heads up.

By the way–after I dropped him off with a buh bye, a wave, and a one-star rating (that’ll show him Laurie, yeah!) the heavens opened and I drove for hours on the back roads of Lancaster and Chester counties through the deluge.

Hours later, though, and I still feel slightly unclean.

Thank you for reading about my first known encounter with a Q believer. They’re like Twitter. Only worse.