Adam Brown

will not stop because they think, oh, I'm not going to, wherever it is, I better not, you know,

I'm not going there, so I won't pick you up, even though you'd very much appreciate a partial ride there.

The other reason is if you do want to decline a ride, it's certainly a lot easier to do so if the person says, oh, I'm going to that city.

That's hard.

If they say they're going to that city and you've written something more vague on your sign, then it's maybe easier to decline a ride.

If you want to get out of the car, the classic and the...

is to say that you get in and you feel unsafe, is to say that you're car sick because even serial killers don't want vomit in their car.

So that's a good reason to get out and then you just say, okay, I'll just stay here.

That's another trick.

I've never had to deploy that.

No, I've never had to deploy that.

Typically, it's pretty, like, there's a moment of, like, anxiety in the first minute.

But then after a minute, it's clear that everybody is, and they're also, I mean, they're also anxious about you.

And, you know, in many ways, you can tell that they're quite nervous about you.

And then after a minute, it's clear that everybody is, if not a sensible human being, then at least a safe human being.

And everything's super relaxed for the rest of the ride, typically.

Memorable, yeah.

Yeah, I remember there was one, like, seemingly very successful cowboy, but, you know, a cowboy driving some fancy truck in Wyoming and had a big herd of cattle and all the rest of it and was just asking me, actually somewhat unusually, just asking me what I do.

And so, you know, at that time,

I was doing cosmology, so I was sort of trying to explain to him, and it just had no totally disconnecting with anything.