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| Stairway to Heaven |
I drove to downtown Los Angeles today as a favor (no good deed goes unpunished) and spent two and a half soul-sucking hours in traffic to get there. Upon my arrival I had to find a place to park. Downtown Los Angeles reminds me of Athens, Greece when it comes to parking and I narrowly beat another car to a parking place. I’m parked and the passenger of the other car, who we’ll call Cupid Stunt jumped from her car and began screaming at me. She wanted the parking spot where I parked my car. So there we are, her screaming and me standing there not doing anything, because this is the era of cell phone cameras.
Homer (driver) then emerges from the car. He was 30 years younger than me, maybe two inches taller and Cupid is telling him to kick my a$$. I’m smiling at her and smiling at Homer and just standing there. I look at Homer and he shrugs. He doesn’t want to fight. Then Cupid lays into him as traffic builds behind his car, which is blocking the 9th Street eastbound lane east of Los Angeles Street, or in that general area. She calls Homer a coward for failing to pound my head soft, and berates his manhood.
Note: It’s Los Angeles and I have a .45 Kimber holstered with two spare magazines and a loose fitting shirt that covers it. Yes, I can CCW legally. So even if Homer has a bazooka, I can double tap him if it comes to that and re-holster before he hits the pavement, dead.
A police officer on a motorcycle arrives and Cupid gets in his face over me taking the parking spot before she and Homer could pull in. I’m still smiling and it really get’s Cupid Stunt’s goat. She asks the police officer to make me stop smiling. I explain to both Cupid, Homer and the Officer that I’m just a happy sort of guy.
Homer gets in his car and drives away, abandoning Cupid. She followed the car, beating on the door, but Homer was in the wind. Traffic situation averted, the police officer drove off. Cupid walked back toward me and asked (meekly now) if I’d give her a ride home. She’s in the downtown skid row area and it’s skid row for miles in all directions – zombie land – but there are open businesses. The people on the street are mainly homeless inner city minority types. Cupid is a caucasian woman in her late 20’s with a low cut blouse and daisy duke cut-offs.
Did I help her out?
“Uh, no.”
Did Cupid Stunt find love on the mean streets of Los Angeles? I can’t say. I took care of biz and headed out of that cess pit.
(There’s a lady who knows all the good times are gone, and she’s climbing a stairway to heaven…)
Happy Endings make me smile.
Karma can be satisfying.
Thanks for starting my day with a smile.
If she is blonde, you could have sold her to the mosque down the street from your house. After all, she didn't say a ride to WHERE.
Might be enough to get a few more acres near White Wolf.
p.s. Glad to see that Homer got his man card back.
You definitely lead a more interesting life than I do. Was she still hanging about when you finished your business and returned to the car? (I'm assuming she didn't do anything to your car.)
Much as I dislike the term "crazy bitch" it's either that, or some drugs thing. Was where you were a good (for values of "good") place to get drugs?
A few weeks ago on the first nice sunny day of spring I drove down Woodward Avenue in Michigan from Birmingham (MI!) all the way to downtown Detroit (so my dad could reminisce about the days he taught at Wayne State Univ and walked around past midnight, no worries). Spotted three drug crews right on the main drag around 2 pm. The stereotype of lazy inner city types is clearly a base canard.
LL – people are getting crazier all the time – even here.
A few weeks ago I was in the Walmart parking lot which at that time was all hosed up due to construction of a gas station. Some guy in a big assed truck was going the wrong way down an aisle. Not being enough room for him to turn because of the construction fence, I nicely backed up so he could get his big assed truck around the corner. As he drove by me he screamed out the window, "Why don't you learn to drive you stupid bitch." WTHell? In little ol' Post Falls? He was going the wrong way, not me.
I had an momentary desire to hunt him down and get in his face, but being a prudent person I squelched the desire.
I avoid downtown L.A. like the plaque. If I *needed* to go there, I'd strongly consider Uber or Lyft…
When there's no more room in hell the insaniacs will walk the earth. As I understand it, LA's been acting as overflow from The Pit for some time now.
She was still sitting there, when I left – about an hour after the incident, hoping Homer would return. He took his balls back and headed for the hills.
I chuckled on the drive home.
She seemed sad when I returned to the car. There were a lot of homeless people who witnessed her histrionics and that meant witnesses. When she realized that she was fresh meat in a lion cage, it seemed to calm her down.
I don't think that it was drugs. She's just crazy as a shit house rat.
I don't know the area that you refer to in Detroit. Been there and it's depressing. Lots of drug crews – and yes, they are as lazy as you portray them. This piece of downtown LA is a place where most people can't afford drugs. It's not gang territory really because of the demographic. There are drunks, glue sniffers, grifters, and the insane…and Cupid, of course.
Whaaaat? In Post Falls, Idaho? I would have bet your last dollar that the place was civil and bucolic.
Likely a better plan. I really didn't think it over and took my Honda Accord. It's not a fit place to be.
LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, Austin, and a host of other places, all of whom voted on the Baal Ticket for Hillary. Consider that Rep. Maxine Waters represents this Congressional District. I needn't say more.
Maxine Waters is Elijah Cummings with a wig. Check it out.
Was it possible C.S. had neither cash or a cell phone?
She had a cell phone. It's possible that Homer was the last person who would tolerate her crap.
It's an LA thing.
About 25 years ago, I was in a Bob's Big Boy in Garden Grove, waiting for somebody to take my order at my table, when I heard a loud squabble between two guys near the register, and one of the guys grabbed the other guy and threw him through the picture window at a booth near the cash register. I tackled that guy, and put him in a full nelson until the manager could summon the police, who then hauled the guy away. The other guy was cut up pretty bad, and was taken away in an ambulance.
The manager comped my cheeseburger and fries, and a few patrons came by and thanked me for taking action.
Just another day in LA. I think it's the water down there, everybody gets involved in shit like this every day.
That took some very large gonads to berate you like that then ask for a ride
You're a better man than I, I wouldn't go NEAR that area!!! But that was funny!
Unbelievable.
But I have never been to Southern California, other than Travis AFB, and have no desire to ever do so. It's too bad because I would enjoy seeing Roseville again. And I did enjoy fishing Lake Amador and Berryessa; but we will never go back to California the way it is now.
True.
I got used to it. One friend thought that I had it easy and went on a ride along. I did three gun take-aways that night from felons with loaded guns pointed at me. The friend was amazed. It was a very unusual night.
I think that she still had Homer's balls in her purse. He wasn't using them.
I had enough firepower, so it didn't bother me. I was the regional gang task force commander and went out in the field every night with the troops. (nobody works harder than the boss does). In this situation, it was more of a comedy.
This is downtown LA between Central and Los Angeles Streets – heart of the skid row ghetto. There are other ghettos in LA and environs and it's not the whole area. DRJIM lives in Long Beach. There are nice areas in Long Beach, for example, like where he lives. North Long Beach is very rough.
There are parts of Long Beach, like the Virginia Country Club section, that puts Beverly Hills to shame.
And as LL notes, there are parts that you just don't go to.
Central Long Beach also has some bad areas, like around Poly High…
You certainly know how to push buttons, Larry Lambert! ;P
What are you going to do for excitement when you move out of there?
When going to dinner with friends one night in back of beyond Oregon, I fell behind the guys. A couple of big squaws started to shove by me in the hallway. I just smiled and stepped out of range. One squaw said she was going to knife me. I just looked her in the eyes, and smiled. She turned to the other one and said, "let's go, She is one crazy white woman". Worked for me.
I spread sunshine wherever I go.
The world around you is nothing more than a reflection of your reaction to the world around you.
Which is why Cupid Stunt was so unhappy.
Squaw is a pejorative term used by people who aren't progressive. Then again, when you carry a semi-automatic handgun and a cattle prod in your purse, I suspect that you can use what ever term you want for the squaw who wanted to knife you. Squaws are like that. It's good that you're a crazy white woman.
I chuckled the whole time I was reading this. My B-Movie mentality was looking for a different conclusion, but you handled it like a gentleman. If I want to see a beat-down, I'll watch a Chuck Norris movie.
There wasn't anyone to beat down – and lots of witnesses. I came prepared if the worst happened, but that's not the sort of thing this was.
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