Check Your Engine

        The ‘check engine’ light went on out of the blue as it usually does when you’re not thinking about the status of your car.  The tiny computer somewhere under the hood that constantly monitors the well-being and the general good nature of the automobile found an anomaly as I was driving home from work one evening and shot a warning sign to my dashboard.  It was the symbol of an engine with a lightening bolt that ran through the middle.  It was one of the more concerning symbols in my dash’s inventory.  Like getting a letter from the bank saying they are about to foreclose on your house.  I was a little caught off guard and being an anxiety-ridden, panicky person my own tiny computer inside my brain began assessing the well-being of my body and immediately shot a warning sign to my psyche.  There was no symbol to recognize, it simply said, “You’re going to die.”

            After a lengthy inspection my lovely Armenian mechanic, Feres, concluded that the problem was a faulty crankshaft valve and suggested that I take the car to the dealer, seeing that the car was still under warranty.  Feres is the antithesis to the stereotypical auto mechanic you see in movies and TV.  He's not gruff or burly or short with words.  He has an ever present smile and speaks in a soft, humble tone.  Feres used to work at the Audi dealership and branched off a few years ago to go into business for himself.  He’s a very honest mechanic, which is difficult to come by these days.  If you ever have the good fortune to find one, hang on to them for dear life.  Feres suggested that I go see Johnny B.  He will take good care of me.

            Two days before there had been a severe windstorm that left Pasadena looking as if it had experienced a severe windstorm.  Most people were incorrectly comparing the damage that the wind had caused to a war-zone.  I have never been in an actual war-zone.  Having our country involved in two wars and having thousands of videos posted on YouTube by the troops of actual combat, one would think that some tree branches and leaves scattered on the ground would not trick people into thinking they were in Iraq or Afghanistan.  But, most people are very quick to make that hasty comparison. 

            I brought my car into the Audi dealership and was met by Johnny B., an Italian man in his late fifties with a strong accent that reminded me of the character Poppy from the TV show Seinfeld.  He was very happy to see me, and he greeted me as if I was a minor celebrity in a small town out in the Midwest. 

            “Whadda seems to-a be da prollem?” Johnny asked as he scurried around the car, taking note of various scratches and imperfections.

            “Well, the check engine light came on a few days ago and I’ve got it on good authority that it might be a defective crank case valve.”

            “Whoah did youa take it to?”

            “I took it to Feres before.  He told me that it was the crank case valve.”  Johnny was in the car jotting down the mileage on his inspection sheet.

            “Feres, he’sa good guy.  He’sa one o’ da best,” Johnny relayed as he logged my mileage.

            “Oh yeah,” I immediately agreed, “he’s one of the good ones.  I wish there were more like him.  I feel pretty fortunate that…”

            “You knowa,” Johnny politely interrupted, “weah gonna have to have da’ car, prolly, all day.  You needa ride somewhere?”

            In the past when I’ve taken my car in I usually stick around Pasadena because it takes no more than a few hours.  There’s plenty to do there, coffee shops, a bookstore, bars, and I was prepared to wait it out.  I brought along a book and some paper and a pen in case I became artistically inspired.  It was when I heard ‘all day’ that I took Johnny up on the offer.

            “Whereah do youa live?” he asked.

            “Just over in Hollywood, you know, off of Forrest Lawn and up Barham Boulevard.”

            “No prollem,” he confidently said.  “We hava someone ah to take you.  Juss hava seat righta here an’ some-a-one will be wit’ you, okay?  Hava good day and Happy Holl-i-days.”

            I normally become nervous when I’m forced to be in the same zone as a stranger, mostly because I’m afraid that I’ll run out of conversation topics.  I’ve managed to place all the responsibility for conversation on myself when encountering strangers.  “I’ll do all the work,” I’d think to myself, “Don’t worry your little head.  Save your topics for someone more important.  For the moment we’ll just be talking about the weather.”

            It was Martin, a pleasant looking man of Mexican descent, who cautiously approached me and sheepishly asked if I was the one who needed the ride. 

            “That would be great,” I said, not wanting to put him out or anything.  I’m positive this man had more important things to do than give me a ride home.

            In a moment of rare confidence, or maybe it was the quite un-rare fear that the two of us were going to spend the fifteen-minute ride home in complete silence, I decided to make a game of our journey.  I was the governor of California and was touring the wind-damaged city of Pasadena.  It’s what the voters would want in a time of stress.

            We pulled out of the dealership and I looked around at some branches that had been blown off and were now swept to the side of the road. 

            “I guess you guys had a lot of wind here the other day, huh?”

            “Oh yes,” Martin answered with grave concern in his voice, “some of the branches came into the property and damaged three Porsches.”

            “Wow!” I exclaimed, “Three?”  I shook my head poignantly, staring at the car lot that was filled with new Porsches, Audis and Jaguars.  “Three Porsches.”  Then, in a very ungovernorly way I accidentally blurted out, “That’s crazy.”

            “Yes, three.  It was the city’s trees.”

            I looked around, surveying the limbs that were scattered in a very unnatural manner as we motored up Colorado Boulevard.

            “It looks like a war zone,” I finally declared with authority.

            “Yes,” Martin agreed with me.  “A war zone.”

            Having a trusty driver is important when your governing such a complicated state like California.  Someone who knows how to navigate even the most convoluted streets in the city and still get you to where you need to go on time.  Someone who’s got your back in a bar fight.  This was Martin.  He came up from Mexico City ten years ago with nothing but a backpack full of hopes and dreams and now here he was, driving around the most powerful governor this state has ever known.

            Most politicians use times of distress as a platform to elevate their own careers.  Not this guy.  “No press,” I declared.  “I don’t want to give people the wrong idea that I’m using this tragedy for my own gain.”  What I would do is tour the devastated parts of the city, assess what I need to do and then report back to my constituents on the progress.  Everything was on a need-to-know basis in my administration.

           

            “How are the people doing?’ I asked Martin while observing a city crew cutting up a pine tree that had toppled onto the freeway.  Most of it had been sliced up and only the massive roots stuck up into the air like a giant cockroach that found itself upside down and, after hours of struggling to right itself, had finally given up.

            “Everyone seems okay,” replied Martin in his own positive way.  “I think it was just some sort of freak storm or something.  This doesn’t usually happen here.”

            Suddenly, one of those annoyingly good looking Fiats cut in front of us and Martin instinctively laid into the car horn.  There was a brief moment of silence when Martin, coming back to his senses, slowly turned to me, almost apologetically, “I don’t know why I honked.”

            “It’s okay,” I quickly assured him, “he wasn’t even using his turn signal.  That car is a menace.  I guess they give licenses to anybody, huh?”

            Martin turned back, disgusted with himself for letting his anger get in the way of his professionalism.  He must have been thinking how I could allow such a loose cannon to be in charge of my driving detail.  We drove on.  I looked around at more crews cutting up fallen trees for compost.  "This place looks like a friggin' war zone," I quietly muttered.

            "Yes," Martin politely agreed, "a bad one."

            We pulled up in front of our house and Martin opened the side door.

            “This has been a very eye-opening experience for me, Martin.” I shook his hand, “Thank you.  I will do what I can.”

            Martin looked at me with those trusting eyes.  “If you need a ride back to the dealership they can pick you up.  Just tell them.”

            And just like that, I was snapped back into reality.  We made it.  That wasn’t bad at all.  There were no awkward silences.  I didn’t run out of things to say. 

            As I got out of the minivan I turned to Martin, “I usually honk when someone cuts me off too.  Maybe it makes them think that next time they should be more considerate.”

            There was a moment of agreement, something that only two war buddies can experience.  Words were not necessary.  All was understood.

            Martin pulled away and I looked up at the house that my wife and I shared.  Our green, mid-century modern house that stood above Troy Drive and was nestled in a quaint little neighborhood just behind Universal Studios.  The house was no longer ours.  The times had caught up with us.  We were underwater with our loan and were well on our way to foreclosure.  We would probably need to cut our losses, short-sell the house and move somewhere cheaper.  Starting over was nothing new to me.  I had done it before and, although, it doesn't get easier there's comfort in knowing that you will always come up on the other side.  The key is to keep moving forward.  Always move forward.  Forward.  From the moment we're born the universe is trying to kill us.  Ironically, it also provides everything we need to defeat it.  That's the balance.  Also, don't cut people off in traffic.  It's rude.  Put on your turn signal first and make sure there's enough room for your car and then give a friendly 'thank you' wave to the person that let you in.  That's what a considerate person would do.  

Changing Lanes On The Road To Nowhere

The freeway, as most people in modern cities agree, is a wonderful place to merge with other cars and pretend like you’re in the parking lot of the grocery store and you’re waiting for your wife who just ran in to get some tampons but got distracted by a Twinkie display and is now filling a grocery cart with frozen burritos, Gummy Bears and beer. The traffic jam is a classic here in Southern California and is beloved by all who participate. To be involved in a Los Angeles traffic jam is a special, special experience that, I’m pretty sure, shortens your life by about ten years.

It is a widely known fact that the current location of the 405 freeway here in Los Angeles is the site of a famous covered wagon traffic jam that occurred on a June morning in 1874 and lasted for seventeen days and four minutes. This was where a convoy of Mormon settlers was headed south towards Mexico in search of a great beanstalk that was rumored to grow so tall that it reached a Giant’s castle up in the sky. Along the way a cattle rancher who didn’t see the oncoming settlers sideswiped the wagon train with a herd of emus, causing the very first Sig Alert in Los Angeles. And, because a group of rubber tree farmers stopped on the other side to see what was going on, but never offered to help, it also gave birth to the term ‘assface who watches but does not help in any way and also impedes progress by blocking all traffic with their stupefying curiosity’. The term was later shortened to simply ‘rubbernecker’.

Ever since then Angelenos pay tribute to that blessed event by holding a commemorative traffic jam every day Monday through Friday at around 7 am and another one around 5 pm. However, because of the growing popularity of ‘The Great Western Pile-Up Of 1874’, as it is now affectionately called, the commemorative traffic jam is currently held seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.

It is in these awesome traffic jams that you might have the unique experience of observing one of nature’s most elusive and annoying creatures, The Constantly Running Late Lane Changer. Imagine yourself at a complete and utter standstill in your car along with six hundred and fifty thousand other cars. Now imagine another car desperately needing to get in front of you. You can tell because their turn signal is on and the nose of their car is slowly inching towards the nose of your car. This is the point where all of that high school algebra comes in handy and makes you realize that the physics of what they are trying to do isn’t going to work out. The math simply doesn’t add up. There is already a car in front of you and several thousand cars in front of that one that one and the probability of the Lane Changer occupying that particular space in front of you is very close to zero point zero zero. But don’t tell them that. Our forefathers didn’t sacrifice their lives so that we can be told that two objects can’t be in the same place at once. This situation is on the verge of becoming a freedom issue and cooler heads must prevail.

Somehow though, the Lane Changer, who is never cool in stressful situations, is running late as they do every day of their lives and therefore, in more of a hurry than the other four million people who are headed in the same direction. And don’t get me wrong, everyone wants to let them in, it’s just that we can’t. It’s physically impossible. Even when they roll down their window trying to get your attention with that desperate wave and the pleading look on their face. You feel helpless. It’s like watching a basket full of puppies being adopted by a family of hyperactive kids. You know those dogs are in for a lifetime of stress and panic, but what can you do about it? Hyperactive kids need pets too. For a moment you have a thought of putting your car in reverse and ramming the car behind you creating enough space for the Lane Changer to squeeze in, thus shortening their commute to work. But alas, because of the millions of cars behind you, this too seems improbable.

The Lane Changer believes that moving laterally, no matter how minute, gets you to your destination quicker. This may be true in their mind, but to the rest of the universe it doesn’t make any sense. Perhaps they are ahead of their time and that one day the cars of the future will have the ability to swiftly merge into each other without colliding, but at this moment during the commemorative morning traffic jam it seems like an idea that is light years away.

Upon further research I’ve discovered that the Lane Changing species goes back several thousand years, all the way back to the Buffalo Wing Dynasty in Upstate New York. It was here amongst crowds of people in wooden carts where they discovered that the way to get somewhere faster than anyone else was to be as obnoxious and irritating as you can with your cart. Constantly changing lanes creates the illusion of forward progress. In the end though, we all arrive at the same destination at the same time to a job that we all hate, wishing it was Friday so we could begin drinking our lives away. If you happen to know a Constantly Running Late Lane Changer perhaps you can recommend to them a book that I have written called ‘Always Running Late? Try Getting Up Earlier!!!’ It gives people tips on how to avoid staying up late on a work week and also includes a link to a PDF file that has the operating manual of every type of alarm clock made in the USA since 1967.

If you come across a Lane Changer, though, please don’t touch them, don’t look them in the eyes and absolutely do not feed them. We need to keep them in their natural state of being lost, confused and desperate and certainly would not want them to begin depending on us for survival at this point in the game. See you all on the freeway.