blame it on la

There comes a time in everyone's life, when you realize that maybe it's time to stop complaining and maybe just suck it up. You say to yourself, "I'm just going to make the best of my current situation." Maybe you like music and you want to start throwing out Fred Durst aka Wordsworth quotes, "Time can change me, but I can't change time, so F it!" Yes, I know that's not how the original song goes, take it up with Fred! In this particular case, I came to that conclusion a few weeks ago. I felt as though I'd finally run out of negative things to say about Los Angeles, which I took as a bit of a breakthrough. I felt myself moving past my initial anger and bitterness and I felt a big smoggy, dusty weight being lifted off of my ever so slight shoulders. Not gonna lie, it felt kind of good, if not a tad bit on the fleeting side. While I knew never to allow myself to get complacent, I did maybe allow myself to verbally compliment the city or at least something about it once or twice.

Now, I'm not the most trusting person in the world, in fact I like to proceed with caution. Yet, because things had been running so smoothly I didn't look at the break in my string of bad luck as the "Calm Before The Storm" that it was. Instead, I skipped and frolicked along as though I'd finally won the battle of LA and I was now enjoying the spoils of my victory! I was getting the peace and clarity I so richly deserved, since I'd never done anything to make LA hate me the way it does. I felt triumphant in the fact that I'd finally made this city my bitch or at least my booty call. So you can imagine my surprise Tuesday morning, when I bounced out of my apartment, Vitamin Water and yogurt in hand, off to spend another fine day breaking up marriages. While whistling a happy tune and bounding down the sidewalk toward my beloved car, I began to make a mental list of all the ways a wife can call her husband a loser. It was only then that I happened to catch a glimpse of my car across the street. My car is silver, but i couldn't help notice that the silver seemed to be complimented by some specifically placed industrial orange that just shouldn't have been there. I knew immediately what it was, in fact it was so obvious and inevitable, I don't think I even bothered cursing about it. My car had sooo been booted!

Ok. Seriously. I know that there are parking issues in pretty much every major metropolitan area. New York is a meter maid's wet dream, Boston keeps its workers in shape by having them run outside every two hours to feed the meters. But there is something shady about the way LA does it's ticket business. You may be thinking "Hey Jackass! Quit bitching, you should have paid your tickets." To that I say "whatever dude." I'm like OJ Simpson and I don't believe the rules apply to me. Besides, half my tickets were bogus. Um, a ticket for not having my car registered? Not true. A ticket for not having my parking pass on display? What's that in the window douche bag? The fact is the system is backwards and I just can't get with their big dumb "ticket you for no reason policies." As far as contesting the bogus tickets? I already said the rules don't apply to me! Maybe I did owe for the other three tickets, but that's neither here nor there. The fact is I guess the boot saved my life, because I was starting to get comfortable, at least now I remember, LA will never be my friend.