BERKELEY, Calif. — On Sunday morning, after a riotous first few weeks of the semester, junior Tiffany Wilson made a bewildering discovery. Parked two feet away from the curb on Piedmont Avenue: Gig car that was, shockingly, incredibly clean and lacked any trace of malodor.
Wilson, who smelled of 10 layers of Native deodorant and B.O. after leading 30 GBO freshmen to Trader Joe’s, was shocked at the reversal of roles. “Usually, every Gig car smells like the inside of a marsupial, and the passenger seat is always reclined as far back as it’ll go — you know how it is,” explained Wilson as she deftly plucked blades of grass out of her hair. “I was pretty embarrassed when I realized that I was the one stinking up the car. There was a lemon air freshener hung up and a jar of mints in the center console. There wasn’t even a weird crusty stain on the backseats like there usually is.”
Upon Wilson’s Gig discovery, a handful of other suspiciously clean cars were reported across the San Francisco Bay Area. Steven King, head of business operations at Gig, spoke in a press conference Monday morning about the strange phenomenon ravaging the bay.
“As a few of our customers have noted, Gig has been taking extra steps to ensure the comfort and satisfaction of our riders. Customer satisfaction has always been our top priority, and that has been our primary motivation in our pivot to the elevated experience that our riders can now experience in our cars,” said King, smiling extremely hard to show off his new veneers. “I am also legally obligated to say that most of the cars in our fleet were declared a public safety hazard by the San Francisco Department of Public Health.”
Despite widespread support, some loyal customers have described feeling let down by this new change.
“I kind of miss the earthiness of the old Gig cars…the musk, the woodiness…it reminds me of home,” said Caitlyn Hoover, who hails from Pasadena but went to Venice Beach three times in the years 2014-2017. “I’m disappointed to see that Gig has let a little government interference get in the way of fun.”
At press time, a reported nine Gig-owned vehicles had to be taken out of commission due to unidentifiable bodily fluids discovered in the process of revamping.