NOTES FROM THE ROAD: Krystal and the Deep Blue Sea

Krystal is my Uber driver who picks me up in Solana Beach to take me to the airport. She drives a shiny new red Tesla. She does not get out of the car to help me load my bags into her trunk. She opens the trunk from inside the car. My daughter helps me move Krystal’s packages—all from Amazon—to the side, so I can get my bag into the trunk.

As I get into the Tesla, I immediately see the entire roof is plastered with hundreds of stickers of Elon Musk. A large heart-shaped pink sticker stuck on her console says: “I love Elon Musk.” No other stickers dot the car’s interior. No political messages or advocacy for special interest groups. The entire car is a shrine to Elon Musk.

I see Krystal’s profile but can only see enough of her face to see her eyebrows are the result of micro blading, a cosmetic technique that is like getting a tattoo. The edge of her eyebrow (the one I could see) looks like it’s peeling. Her hair is in a high pony tail under a red ball cap.

I  want to know why this woman who works hard for her money loves Elon Musk. We’re traveling away from Solana Beach, going south in San Diego County. The view from sandstone cliffs trebles onto the Pacific Ocean in the pattern of a G-Flat. The cliffs are quietly eroding. Spikey succulents dot the cliffside to hold the line from drifting out to sea.

If I immediately ask her about Elon Musk, she might get defensive. I decide to bide my time with Krystal to strike a rapport with her, easing her into small talk, asking questions about her life. I’ve learned long ago, when given a chance, people love to talk about themselves. Krystal is no exception.

Once Krystal starts talking, she doesn’t stop and plunges into politics. She thinks Trump’s doing a good job with tariffs and insists that his tariffs are doing good for the country. “All those people not paying for things, taking advantage of us. I ain’t gonna pay less taxes for those high tariffs.”

A native of San Diego, she grew up on the outskirts in Ramona Valley. She went to a public high school and was in the GATE program. When I confess that I’m not familiar with GATE, she patiently explains that the program is for gifted and talented students, and that she’s always been “real good at math.” She’s proud that she never got into any trouble in high school, except for the times she talked too much.

She takes her eyes briefly off the road, turning slightly to look at me. “Everything is a mess right now, but things will get better.” I gaze out the window to look at the expanding view of the Pacific Ocean. The water is serene today and lives up to its name. I don’t want to watch how long Krystal take her eyes off the road. Traffic is heavy on I-5.

Now she is looking into her rearview mirror and reassuring me. “The bugs are just getting worked out right now. The world will be safe and secure because of Elon Musk.”

I ask her where she gets her information. She reads the news on her phone and watches CNN. She is short of credits to get her B.A. degree and doesn’t know how that happened. Soon she’s going to return to college, but she doesn’t know whether she wants to focus on business & finance or bioinformatics & gene sequencing. She doesn’t know which way she wants to go, business or science, and that’s the big problem, that’s why she isn’t in school and hasn’t finished her degree.  

She talks about her childhood in Ramona Valley as though it happened to someone else. Nothing remarkable. She came from a family of four children. She says little about her siblings or her family.

She changes the subject by asking me if I have brothers or sisters. I tell her I have one sister in New Hampshire. “Where’s New Hampshire?” she asks. “By Massachusetts,” I tell her. “Where’s that?” She’s turning slightly again to look at me. “Boston,” I say, but it does not resonate with her. “The Boston Red Sox?” Then she says, “Oh.”

“So you like Elon Musk… Tell me about Elon Musk.”

She giggles. “I love Elon Musk because he’s relatable and he’s everywhere.”

I ask her if she has ever met him. She has only seen him in a few interviews. “Where?” I ask.

“Everywhere. His memes are everywhere.”

Then she asks me if I’ve ever met Elon Musk and seems disappointed when I confess I have not.

She says she knows Elon Musk is keeping the world, safe, secure, frictionless. He will eliminate tech rot. She asks me if I know what tech rot is. I confess, I do not. She explains that tech rot is all the technology that does not work. When Elon Musk gets rid of the tech rot, the world will be safe and secure.

Aside from Elon Musk, she also loves Albert Einstein.

Krystal steers her Tesla and our conversation on a steady course. She loves technology and wears an Apple Watch. As much as she loves her Apple Watch, she does not use it. It’s not even set up. She has two cell phones and uses them both. She does not use a computer or a tablet unless she absolutely must.

She asked me my favorite technology and for a moment I’m dumbfounded because I don’t think about the technology I use. My computers are tools. I don’t regard them as a “favorite technology,” and my phone is a necessary evil. I keep my screen time down to two and a half hours a day. I know I’m a rarity, but I really like to think without using A-I.

I asks her what her favorite technology is.

She says, “Just watch.” She talks in the direction of her Tesla console. “Hello Google, what is the temperature today in San Diego?”

Google responds, “It is 64 degrees and sunny in San Diego.”

Krystal is absolutely delighted with Google’s response. She has made a connection. She defines Google’s response as “robotics” and says it’s her favorite technology. “My robot is responsive, relatable, and makes me feel safe and secure!”

“As long as you have your robot, you’ll never be alone,” I tell her.

“Exactly!” she says.

As we pull up to the terminal at the airport, I am thinking about Krystal, a young woman in San Diego, who drives a Tesla as an Uber, and thinks Elon Musk will make the world safe and secure. After the ride, I give her five stars and leave her a good tip. If the Pacific Ocean looks blue, it is only a mirage capturing the way the light hits the water.