I'll be your Uber driver tonight.

I've never used Uber. I get the concept, and the concept scares the hell out of me.

As I understand it, through an app on your smartphone you let Uber know you need a ride.

Then, they let a complete stranger, who's somehow managed to pass a cursory background check while hiding the fact he killed three kids in Jersey, know where you are and what you look like.

They pull up in their personal car, which may or may not have been serviced or inspected since they've owned it ("Brake pads?! That's just crazy talk."), and you get in.

That thing you heard through your entire childhood about getting into cars with strangers? Yeah, not so much.

Google "bad Uber experience" and you'll get thousands of pages detailing horror stories. On the flip side, there's a website called Diary Of An Uber Driver, written by an anonymous driver, who appears to work in Australia, about the nightmare customers he's picked up. It's quite funny, although not as funny as this blog or Round Seventeen.

The reason I'm ranting about Uber is I was mulling over becoming a driver to research a short story in the works.

Fortunately, I sat still for a few minutes, the urge passed and I thought of something else to write about.

As far as I can tell, being an Uber driver does have a few things in common with freelancing: you work when you want. You can take long gigs (drives) or short ones. And you have to make a good impression each time out so they'll ask for you again (passengers get to rate their driver through the app).

On the other hand, when I'm freelancing at home or in an agency, rarely does anyone throw up where I'm working, leave their purse or wallet on my desk, fall asleep in the chair next to me (unless we're in a status meeting) or scratch my upholstery with their keys. Then expect me to clean it up.

The reason I even signed up for Uber - did I mention I signed up for Uber? - is because of my son. He doesn't have a car while he's at school, so he'll be using public transportation (which university students ride for free), getting rides with friends and using Uber when he has to. The deal was if I signed up, he gets $20 in free rides.

Which is $20 I don't have to spot him, so sign me up.

The catch is he doesn't get the credit until I take my first ride. Around the block counts, right?

Don't ask: Watching your stuff

Continuing my ever popular Don't Ask series - the one that brought you such wildly popular and praised installments like Don't Ask: Moving, Don't Ask: Picking Up At The Airport, Don't Ask: Loaning You Money, Don't Ask: Sharing A Hotel Room, Don't Ask: Writing A Letter For You and the perennial Don't Ask: Sharing My Food, comes this timely post dealing with my latest irritation sweeping the nation: Complete strangers who ask me to watch their stuff.

When I work on a freelance gig that doesn't require me to be at the agency (the best kind), I like to get away from the distractions of home and use whatever Starbucks I happen to be near as my local branch office. Inevitably, as you'd expect in an establishment serving coffee in cups bigger than apartments I've had, people will eventually have to make a trip to the restroom.

For some reason, when that time arrives, I'm the guy they always turn to and say, "Excuse me, can you watch my stuff?"

I usually give them a non-committal kind of half-nod that can be taken for a yes, but that I can use for a no if their stuff goes missing and we wind up in court.

I think it's flattering people think I have an honest face (if that's what they think) and feel like they can trust me with their $3500 MacBook Pros, Swiss Army backpacks and iPhone 6's for as long as it takes them to pee. But the fact is with one house, two kids, two dogs, three cars and having to finance all of them, I have enough responsibility in my life without being a security guard for your stuff.

Plus the assumption I'm going to give chase to someone who's made off with your stuff is flattering, but misplaced. The most I'll do, and only because my sense of right and wrong is so finely honed, is try to get a plate number if they're in a getaway car.

It's an odd thing to me how unlike any place else, Starbucks and other coffee houses seem to work on the honor system. You don't leave your car running at the post office and ask the stranger walking by to watch it for a minute while you run in an mail a letter. Alright, maybe not a great analogy but you get my drift.

Anyway, it doesn't matter how nice you ask - I'm not getting shanked just because you couldn't hold it anymore.

Why not just do what I do? Get up, confidently walk to the restroom, quickly do your business and get back to your table. Make the assumption whoever's about to make off with your things doesn't know if you're watching them from the line or locked in the loo.

If your stuff is gone by the time you flush, don't blame me. I told you not to ask.

Emotionally loaded

It's 2:30 in the morning on a starless, black night.

You're suddenly awakened out of a deep sleep by the harsh sound of shattering glass - a sound you intuitively know means nothing good is about to happen. As you get out of bed to see what it is, extreme unease fills you. Your heart is pounding, all senses are on high alert. As you get to the bedroom doorway, you discover an intruder, a stranger you immediately recognize as a very bad man, moving quickly with very bad intentions down the hallway towards your daughter's room.

You see him, but he doesn't see you. Yet.

The question is what would you like to have on you at this moment. A phone to call 9-1-1 in the hopes they'll get to you faster than he'll get to your daughters' room. Maybe a baseball bat, so you can run up behind him (which he'll hear) and engage in physical combat with him. A flashlight so you can shine it on him and let him know you're there and exactly where you're standing. How about a whistle to blow, so you wake everyone in the house up making it easy for him to know where they are, and who the most vulnerable one is.

For me, the answer is a gun.

If this were the scenario in my house, I'd have no qualms about taking the guy out before he ever reached my kids' room.

I have friends who disagree strongly on this viewpoint. In fact, one of them recently posted on Facebook that you're a moron if you even own a gun. Obviously a much more emotional response to the issue than an informed one.

But that's what the emotion on both sides of the issue drives people to do: paint in broad strokes, and make assumptions that simply aren't true.

Everyone who owns a gun is not a moron, or a killer waiting to happen. I know people who own guns. In fact I know people who own arsenals. Their weapons are legal and registered. They're well trained, responsible people who secure them when not in use. They know and practice gun safety.

In the light of the Newtown tragedy, both sides have a hair trigger when it comes to the other. And it's irrational fear that's driving both of them.

I don't think there's any one answer, but we have to start somewhere. The 23 items Obama put forth today - from assault weapons ban to increased and in-depth background checks - is as good a place as any. I believe monitoring and follow-up should also be part of the mix.

It's ridiculous and ignorant in equal parts to think all people who own guns are morons, or all guns are going to be banned, or the government is going to raid your house and take your guns. What all this talk does is drive gun sales. And the most fearful people who are doing the buying are probably the ones who shouldn't have them.

Do we have a gun culture? Are our children exposed to too much violence? Does it have a detrimental effect? I don't know. Does playing with toy fire trucks mean they're going to grow up to be firemen?

These are all appropriate questions that deserve considered and thoughtful answers.

Right after I take out that guy on the way to my daughters' room.