I've been seeing cars driving around the city with those weird pink fuzzy mustaches on their grills for some months now. I figured it was just a cancer protest, or maybe the automobile version of the hanky code, thereby alerting fellow motorists to honk twice for some parking lot handie or something. But after seeing more and more of these things, my curiosity got the better of me. So while crossing the street the other day, I spotted one of these pink mustache rides stopped at the red light and went up to the driver's window, knocked on it, and asked what's up.

Here's a brief account of the conversation, most of which the young female driver spent frantically finishing for something in her purse (mace?):

Me: Hey, what's the deal with the pink mustache thing on…

Driver: I don't have any money leave me alone!

Me: What? No, I wanna know about the mustache.

Driver (cracking her window): Oh, uh, it tells people that I'm a taxi.

Me: A what?

Driver: It's through an app called Lyft. People say they need a ride and I go pick 'em up. Donation-based. They give me however much they think is fair to pay me.

Me: Isn't that illegal?

Driver: No. At least I don't think it is.

Me: Weird.

Driver: Dude the light is green and you're standing in the middle of traffic.

Me: Oh, right.

Anyway, now I know!