Pulling Over, Picking Up the Phone, and Forgetting What I Wanted to Look At

The screen lights up. I look at it. It looks at me.

I have just pulled over, put the kickstand down, taken the phone off the mount on the handlebar, and I cannot remember what I took it down for.

I have driven a ride-hailing motorbike taxi for four years. I am forty-six, and my name is Hưng. To me the phone is the map, the place where rides come in, the place where a passenger writes "I am at gate B," the thing that rings when a passenger cannot see me. It is a work tool, like the second helmet I always keep spare for passengers. And still there are moments when I pick it up with a very clear task in my head, and two minutes later the screen is still lit, the task is gone, and the passenger is waiting.

This piece is about four places I have seen this happen, and a few small things I tried to make it happen less. All of it is done only when the bike has fully stopped, kickstand down, engine off. On the road my hands do not touch the screen, and this piece will never tell you to do otherwise.

This is not about a bad memory. I remember the shortcuts through the whole old market, I remember the names of seven regular passengers and their home addresses, and I still cannot remember why I unlocked the phone. Nor is it about the phone having some tremendous pull. It just sits there and lights up. This piece does not argue about whether it is good or bad for anyone.

Lock the phone while it shows exactly what you will need in a moment

Ten past eleven, the mouth of an alley. A passenger writes: "Please wait for me at gate B, the yellow building, number 46." I read it, nod at the phone, press lock, clip it back on the mount, and ride two hundred meters.

When I arrive, I pull over, take the phone down, swipe to unlock. The screen shows the map, a blinking blue dot, and two new messages from two other people. I look up: three buildings, every one of them yellow, and I do not remember a single letter or number.

— Are you here yet?

— Yes, I am here. Which gate are you at?

— I wrote it to you.

She laughs, with no blame in her voice. I stand there holding the phone, my face hot, scrolling back to find the old message.

At the time I thought I was just forgetful. It sounds reasonable, and I had gotten used to saying it to myself. But thinking back, the problem is not memory, it is what the phone shows when I open it. After I lock it, it does not keep what I need, it goes back to the newest thing: the map, two messages from other people. The address has sunk lower down. The intention "remember gate B, number 46" was, when I pressed lock, only a sentence hanging in my head, resting nowhere. The screen that has just lit up hands me the thing that has words on it, a blue dot, a sender's name. An idea with no words loses at once.

I have only seen this in my own phone, in my own trade. I do not know how many other people it is true for.

What I changed was small: before locking, leave the screen sitting exactly where I will need it a moment later, and only then lock. I do not tell myself "remember." I let the machine remember.

I know I did it right when I arrive and my thumb does not have to swipe through the home screen, does not have to scroll back. The first time I forgot even to do that, and only realized I had not left it when I opened the phone. After three days there were afternoons I got through three rides in a row, and afternoons I forgot twice. At the weekend I counted: more rides where I did not have to scroll back than before, and some where I still did. On a day when rides pile up, I cut it down to one thing: say quietly "leave the screen in the right place" before pressing lock.

Where I slipped is hard to call right or wrong. Afraid of forgetting, I took screenshots of the address to be safe. A screenshot of the first ride, the second, the third. Then one afternoon I opened the photo gallery to look for an address and found a whole pile of screenshots, each almost like the others, the street names unreadable. Finding it took about as long as the passenger had been standing there. A screenshot makes me feel careful, but really it only adds one more place to get lost. That evening I deleted them all and kept one thing: the passenger's original message, left as it was, not captured.

Six minutes waiting at the building gate, and the blue jacket I did not see

Twenty past two in the afternoon, in front of a glass-fronted office building. The passenger writes "coming right down." How long is right down, the words do not say. I put the kickstand down, stay on the seat, both hands loose on the handlebar.

After three minutes of waiting I pick up the phone, "to see whether the passenger is down." The screen shows the passenger's message, then I see another message from someone else, then a notification underneath. I read the notification. Then I open it. When I look up, a woman in a blue jacket is standing next to the bike, tapping lightly on the rear seat:

— Excuse me, are you the driver? I have been standing here five minutes.

— Yes, yes, I am sorry.

— It is fine. What were you looking at so closely?

I told her the truth:

— I do not remember either.

She laughed, and climbed on.

I think waiting here lasts longer than I realize. The word "waiting" sounds like rest, but really I am working: watching a door. And watching a door is dull, especially when nothing happens at it for several minutes in a row. Picking up the phone is the cheapest way to feel I am doing something. "Checking whether the passenger is down" is just an excuse that sounds reasonable: when the passenger comes down I will see her with my eyes, without a screen. What I really want is to give my finger a job. Waiting with nothing to do feels like waste.

So I give my eyes a job instead of my finger. When the passenger writes, I ask one question only: "What color are you wearing?" Once I have the answer I leave the phone on its mount, my eyes sweep the stream of people coming out of the door, looking for exactly that color. It sounds like a children's game, but my eyes have a real task: finding blue in a crowd of white and black shirts.

I know I did it right when the passenger reaches the bike and I have already seen her a beat earlier, or at least I am not tapped on the seat. The first day I looked for the wrong color twice, because people wrote "blue" and the jacket was slightly gray. A few days later, someone wrote "white T-shirt" and I saw her at once, someone else wrote "on my way down" and vanished for seven minutes. On a day when passengers are many, the short version is one word: ask the color of the shirt, that is all.

One place I often go wrong: asking too much. "What color are you wearing, long hair or short, a hat, what kind of bag?" The more I ask, the more I hold the phone, waiting for the passenger to answer each question, and my eyes are not on the gate. Once a passenger wrote back: "I am here, you kept asking and I could not come down." Since then I ask only one question.

The woman in the blue jacket sat behind me until the end of the ride and said nothing more. I do not know what she thought of a driver who waited five minutes and could not remember what he had been looking at. She may have forgotten already.

A bread roll going cold in my left hand

Two in the afternoon, under the tamarind tree near the market, the sugarcane juice seller pushing her cart back and forth. I have twenty minutes between two rides. My right hand holds a bread roll, my left hand holds the phone, "checking the time."

After checking the time I swipe once more. Then once more. The screen shows a short video someone sent, I watch it to the end, then watch the one next to it. When I look up, the bread roll in my right hand has gone cold, still three quarters whole.

— Eat, child, it is cold already, it will taste bad.

The sugarcane juice seller says it without letting go of the press. I laugh, take a bite, and find the roll stone cold, and I cannot recall the taste of its pâté.

It is not as if I need to know the time, when I have a next ride it tells me itself. "Checking the time" is the smallest door my finger can find to open the screen without having to admit I want to open it. I tell myself: just the time. And I believe it, every time.

People say do not hold your phone while eating. If I put it away, who will take the rides? Looking closer, the matter is somewhere else: while I eat, my left hand has no job. A hand with no job goes looking for one, and the phone is always nearest. So I give my left hand another job.

Before I pick up the bread roll, I press the pause button in the app, put the phone in the compartment under the seat, and close the lid. Twenty minutes, or until the roll is gone. My left hand rests on my knee or holds the glass of sugarcane juice. As for the time, I put my old plastic watch back on my left wrist, the one that had lain in a drawer for ages.

I know I did it right when I finish eating and do not see my thumb running up and down my thigh, looking for something to swipe. The first day I opened the compartment three times, and each time invented a reason: just checking whether anyone wrote, just checking the battery. On the third day, twice. By the end of the week there were meals where the roll was still warm when I finished, and meals where I picked the phone up as before. If a rush ride has to be accepted in the middle of eating, then so be it, I do not force it. On a day too busy to pause the app, it is enough to put the phone in the compartment for the first three minutes of the meal.

The mistake I make most is leaving the phone in the compartment but opening the compartment all the time to "check the battery." Opening the compartment is also a swipe, only with one extra motion, which makes me feel I have been more serious. Once I opened it six times in a fifteen-minute meal and still thought I was trying hard. Now I leave the phone in there for good and put the water bottle on the seat, where my hand reaches first. A meal with nobody waiting is just a meal. Someone has already written about eating a meal without holding your phone. For me the only difference is a smaller bread roll and a sugarcane juice seller.

The passenger behind me, watching the road for me

Six in the evening, a long red light at a crowded intersection. A passenger, a student about nineteen, sits behind me, both arms hugging her backpack against her chest. I am glancing at the map on the mount, the road runs straight to the bridge, I have ridden this route a hundred times. The light goes green. I ride.

— Excuse me.

— Yes?

— You keep looking at your phone, it makes me a little nervous.

I said nothing. I remembered my hand at the red light: my thumb tapping the edge of the handlebar, the gesture of someone about to reach for the phone. I rode on, not knowing what to say.

That night at home I thought about it for a long time. The map on the mount tells me where to turn, and that is what it does well. But the road to the bridge I know, straight all the way. My eyes still dropped down every few dozen seconds, not to learn anything. To be sure. That glance is like someone who locks the door and then goes back to try the handle. It brings back no information. It brings back a feeling of whether I am right.

Everyone says watch the road when you ride, and hearing that again and again helps nothing. What I see is that the glance is the habit of a head that does not yet trust it knows the way. To trust, it needs something clearer than "probably": I need to be able to say the next three turns.

What I do: before I put it in gear, while the bike is still stopped, I look at the map once, properly, then quietly say the next three turns. "At the end of this street, left at the gas station. Straight through two intersections. At the bridge, stop." Then I lift my head and put it in gear. If I forget a turn, I pull over to look again, I do not glance while moving. I know I did it right when I get through the three turns and my eyes have not gone down to the mount once. I cannot measure it, I only remember that some afternoons my thumb no longer tapped the handlebar.

The first time I said the three turns quietly, I felt like a schoolboy reciting a lesson. The passenger behind me knew nothing. The next day I knew it better, and one passenger even asked "why did you ride so smoothly today," and another said nothing. I can only tell my own part.

I slipped exactly once here. I thought it was good, so I scaled it up: memorize the whole trip, twelve turns, learned by heart before riding. At the fifth I forgot the sixth, and forgot even that I had remembered the first five. I pulled over, flustered for a minute, and thought I was stupid. I had thought the more I prepared the surer I would be. It turns out three turns is enough for a head to carry once; after that I pull over again, look again, three turns again.

If I tried this and it did not work

One afternoon I said "leave the screen in the right place" quietly as I pulled over, and the sugarcane juice seller, standing nearby, glanced over. She asked:

— Child, who are you talking to?

I laughed. That is the first reason: saying it aloud is awkward, especially when someone stands close or a passenger sits behind. Cut it down to one word under your breath, or just move your lips. What matters is having a moment where you name the task, it does not need anyone to hear.

The second reason: my work jumps from ride to ride, some days the next ride arrives before I have even locked the phone. I cannot force steadiness through a whole shift. Pick a short stretch, like the first three rides or the lunch break, and leave the rest as usual. Every shift has its exceptions, and I do not demand that this method be airtight.

There is one thing these small steps do not solve. If you forget not only about opening the phone but other familiar things during the day, forgetting constantly, or alongside other changes that seem strange to you, or lasting tiredness, then it is worth talking to a doctor or someone with the training. That goes beyond a trick about leaving the screen in the right place. And some days we forget simply because the head is busy elsewhere, like the matter of scrolling for a while and not remembering what you saw, which I find a close cousin of this.

I do one more thing, though I am not sure it suits anyone else. At the weekend I mute two apps that have nothing to do with rides, much like the turning off notifications for one hour a day that people describe, except I do not mute for a whole hour, only two apps. It does not fix the habit of picking it up and forgetting, but it takes away two things I could get lost in.

Ten past eleven, the mouth of an alley. I pull over, put the kickstand down, open the passenger's message and leave the screen there, lock the phone, clip it back on the mount. At the intersection ahead there is still a minute of red light.

The passenger steps out from gate B, in blue, waving.