sometimes you know you shouldnt take the ride.
then sometimes youre wrong so you question your instincts.
he was wearing a jacket on a 90-degree day. and he took a long time to get to me. the streets are overflooded right now in summertime with other drivers so you gotta get what you can when you can.
then i saw him helping an old man in a walker to the curb and i was both, oh thats why. and also fuck am i gonna have to take this old guy to ucla hospital by myself?
we were just going for a check up, nothing pressing, mark assured me.
it was estimated to be a 40-minute trip to the cooler part of town, so i didnt mind waiting, but holy god he was taking forever to get his dad to the car and then the walker in the trunk and then papi in the car.
he made joe biden look spry.
a solid 15 excruciating minutes later, they were in.
any other time i woulda cancelled after 2 minutes. i can be the most impatient, heartless person you know. if you live with a person and are aware it takes them forever to get in a car, omg have them outside when i arrive. it’s math.
dad’s name was whitey and he mumbled, which was cool with me.
once they were in, mark was all, the doctor’s appointment is for 4, so we have to hurry.
NOW YOURE INTERESTED IN HURRYING?
i looked at the tesla screen. while waiting for them i punched the address into the car to see what the ETA would be. 4:20pm, it said.
i was all theres no way we make it by 4.
he said, i know, but if we take the freeway we might be able to make up some of that time when we take the 405 carpool lane.
if this was a movie, this would have been the inside joke to the LA viewers.
there’s not one person in the world you should trust less than the person who thinks you will SAVE time by going over the hill on the 405.
but heres the crazy thing about me as a driver: even though im twitchy like a crack head before you get in the car,
once the wheels start rolling, the customer is always right.
you wanna take the most notorious freeway in LA as you rush your old dad to see his doctor, im not even gonna try to talk you out of it.
do i know the fastest way from los feliz to ucla, day or night, in rain or on the weekend? have i done hundreds of trips at ucla alone because of bonuses lyft and uber used to give us?
yes, but none of that matters because in the rare chance that my route gets fucked, then it’s 100% on me, and the whole time the dude’s gonna be pouting in the back thinking that his way woulda been the best way.
as we hit traffic on the 101 before the 405, it was clear that the freeway was the worst idea. but i didnt care because mark was talking my ear off about politics and podcasts and growing up in an all Black neighborhood and how they beat the crap out of him until one day he got a tazer
and how trying and failing to fit in fucked him up and his dad was an alkie and his brother died of liver failure at 35 and his sister was kidnapped and and and
it was a horror story. in traffic. and it was hot. and it only got worse.
pops held his hand up to his mouth and groaned, what do i do?
you know how some dads can be reading the newspaper and sense one of their kids is about to swallow a switchblade? well, i always know when someone is gonna puke in my back seat.
i say, mark theres a barf bag in the seat pocket next to your dad’s knee.
bro rushed to it, got it and dad started hurling.
no, keep it on your face, he told his father after a little while.
please please listen to him, i esp’d.
this tesla is 5 weeks old. i bought a little hand vacuum for it. it has car seat covers, snacks, water. theres towels in the trunk. car wax. i even put rubber heavy duty floor mats all around it so i wouldnt have to vacuum every day. pull em out and hose em down once a week was the plan.
pops was coughing and puking and spitting in the bag and i was going zero miles an hour being forced to listen to this young man explain how candace owens was a thousand percent right that women control everything because they have the power of the pussy
i thought, i need to get a dashcam in this thing so i can warn all passengers that they are being recorded.
but i dont want an hour of this guy on video, i want to capture the audio because i am not a talented enough writer to fully recall precisely what this guy said and how he said it.
he would fluctuate from the dumbest shit ever: fully racist, fully fox news indoctrinated, but more so rightwing podcasts and AM talk radio
but also sometimes he would bust out with some big words or shockingly accurate statistics, while structuring the sentence wonderfully
even though it was about how women are always trying to upgrade from one social status to the next via her man at the time. but she will dump him as soon as something better comes.
mark was also excellent at not letting me talk.
i was torn because he was the one who mentioned incel when he was complaining about how mad at his dad he was for never being there, always being drunk, never caring about his kids, and having the worst taste in friends because the last one turned into a squatter who sold drugs and intentionally wrote bad checks
mind you dad was sitting right next to him, still puking, grunting, making me worry he was gonna pour it on his caretaker
i am not an alcoholic, pops finally sneered, in his defense, between completely disgusting noises.
reader, i had put myself in this situation over a quest for $20.
i am a college graduate.
i have excelled in most of the jobs ive done.
but there i was creeping now near the overpass on the 405 where i remember someone had leapt from to their demise about 15 years ago.
sepulveda runs parallel to the 405 and i wanted to get these people out of my life as soon as possible.
years ago i drove a drunken marine, who i gave the barf bag to, and he used it, and i felt so proud of myself, but then he dropped it when he passed out.
so i was worried that pops was gonna do the same thing. i need to bring some plastic grocery bags, i thought to myself, hoping it would help me remember.
every minute that guy is in my sweet new used car the odds of tragedy increased.
sometimes i think, am i doing this for the right reasons? the son said, talking about how he takes care of his dad for money through a government program. i mean, he continued, i want the things he has had, a girlfriend, then a wife, then a family. but i can’t date if i am constantly with him. i cant do anything.
ive never had a girlfriend, he said.
perfectly average guy. good hair, fucker. ok clothes. but such a warped view of women. it was war to him. like every single woman wanted a millionaire and wouldnt be satisfied until they got one.
i wanted to tell him women get horny and lonely and will settle, trust me on this, for a guy who will listen and go to the movies with them, and munch their box and make them feel normal. i wanted to say so much.
when i got an opening i said, ok, hold up, when you were in high school, or even junior high, were there any girls who you heard had a crush on you? even if they were not hot in your book.
yes, but she was mexican and her dad didn’t want her to get with a guero.
i said, do you think she’s with a millionaire right now?
he raised his voice a tad and said, ok now that is a gotcha question and it doesn’t dispel my point. whoever she is with, she calls the shots and wont be happy until she has everything. All women….
i wanted to tell him it’s not just women who are insatiable, unsatisfied and ruthless. they say some dogs will eat until they fall over if they have unlimited food. but the reason sooooo many people marry non-millionaires is because tim pool and rusty nailbox or whoever you’re listening to on those podcasts are bullshitting for money. Insanity pays. Again, trust me.
i nosed over to the off ramp from the freeway to sepulveda and asked, ok Waze says we’ve got 23 more minutes on the 405, do you think we can do it quicker on sepulveda?
mark was all, you never know where the traffic will end on the freeway, but you always know on a side street you’ll have to stop at lights and signs, and there might be traffic there too. let’s stay on the 405.
so i just gave up. i let him tell me about going to jail for bouncing checks. about how i need to start listening to ben shapiro. and how, sure trump is a buffoon, but he’s the only one who can get us out of this mess.
youd be proud of your boy for biting his tongue.
you know how some people have parking karma – no matter how hard it is to get a parking spot, they can find one effortlessly anywhere they want? i feel like i have that about traffic. rarely am i stuck in it. but i was so stuck in it with these guys until i let go and just allowed him to vent his bootleg tucker carlson spiel all over the back of my neck.
i was trying so hard to give him advice on how to get laid but he needed to get his theories out at me.
hell, i might even know some girls who spoke his same insane language. but there was no room. and as ive learned, you cant save some people.
then traffic lightened and when it did i thought to myself, have there been people who have been trying to solve my problem but i was too busy yapping i never let them in?
soon we were flying past the getty, past brentwood, and down wilshire
got pops to the hospital, i leapt out and opened the trunk to get the walker unfolded and next to the passenger seat in seconds
and as we got the old guy out of the seat, i saw a puddle in the rubber floor mat
it was contained, but it was gross, but the rubber mat had done its job.
i ran to the trunk for the giant towel, a half bottle of water, and wiped it up. then i vacuumed the seat of all that negativity.
and got the fuck outta ucla.