People dislike this city for a lot of reasons. I don’t mind the fake boobs, shallow friendships, or even the traffic usually, but if there is one reason I don’t belong in Los Angeles, it is this: I have bad automotive hygiene.
I drive a dirty green BMW.
I drive the only dirty green BMW in the city of Los Angeles.
But it’s all okay because real hackers don’t wash their cars. That’s what my friend Dan said, and he knows a lot about these things, so it must be true.
So I’m lazy about taking it to the carwash. This is a only problem because it Never Rains In Southern California.
Here is a secret: sometimes, I actually dust off my windows, with a rag, just to buy myself a few more days. But then, a couple weeks back, Mike and I were heading to Laguna for the weekend. On the way, we saw an OC soccer mom driving her filthed-out minivan, which sported the single best piece of fingerscribbled graffiti I’ve ever seen:
“I WISH MY WIFE WERE THIS DIRTY!”
That was it for me. The day we got back, my little car went to the carwash. It totally looks new now, which is great, because now sometimes people actually let me through in traffic. But back when it was the color of a Salton Sea backyard, people would sometimes get offended, and in the most amusing ways.
Scene: Two weeks ago, rush hour, while driving home from Westwood.
Windshield partially opaque.
Spray a little wiper fluid on the windshield.
Totally opaque.
Spray lots of wiper fluid on the windshield.
LOTS.
Transparent again!
Then: Someone screaming. It sounds like a lady channeling the entire audience, all at once, from the Jerry Springer show.
Looking around, I see nothing. It’s just traffic everywhere. The light changes. My game of SpotTheCrazyHomelessLady will have to wait another day.
More wiper fluid!
And then the screaming starts up again. Cursing screaming. Flailing screaming. Angry screaming.
And honking! The honking is coming from the car behind me!
And that’s when I break the #1 road rage rule: Never make eye contact with someone crazier than you.
I had to look. The screaming was coming from an enraged and gigantic lady. Both of her pudgy french-manicured and gold-jewelry bedangled middle fingers waving at me. The entire cabin of the car filled between her afro-ed hair and corpulent torso, she is honking and screaming as loudly as she could. Screaming and honking at me!
And at that moment, I burst into laughter.
It crosses my mind that I should have felt some change in my central nervous system, the kind of thing that’s evolved to move you out of danger and keep you alive: an adrenal response. Increased pulse. Something. Even sympathy for the wrenching suffering of my fellow human in that other car. But I can’t stop laughing, because behind me, there’s this enormous angry lady flipping me off and all I can think is it looks like a mall jewelry cart exploded in the nail salon. On the Jerry Springer set.
What did I do to cause this outburst? There were no lane changes, no one got cut off, nobody was really even moving. I never figured it out, but I still laugh when I think about how worked up she got that day. I mean, really? Chill. When you get that upset, the only person you’re hurting is yourself. Because everyone else is laughing at you.
So you know the drill: rush hour, driving home from Westwood. Mercury Cougar tailgaiting me. I mean, if you’re so close I can’t even see the front of your car in my rearview mirror? In stop and go traffic? That’s just uncool.
But wait. It gets better. The driver looks about 18, and she is yacking away on her handheld portable electronic communication device. At least she is not texting, I think, but nevertheless, my brakes are better than hers and today I am not in the mood to be rear-ended by a tamagotchi-mommy.
There’s that uncomfortable heightened awareness you can feel, when your personal space is violated, or your safety compromised. And if you’re in front of a dimwit in stop and go traffic, you’re pretty much stuck until there is an accident, or one of you turns off.
Until in a totally inspired moment, you remember the last time someone was tailgaiting you, on this exact same road.
That person was honking and screaming, not giggling and chatting on a cellphone, but… suddenly it is all totally clear to you.
And even though the beautiful clean green car doesn’t need it, you hit the windshield wiper.
Wiper fluid. LOTS of wiper fluid.
So much wiper fluid.
More.
Suddenly that crummy old car isn’t tailgaiting.
And once again I can’t stop laughing, because I finally realized what a powerful weapon I posess: A bent wiper fluid hose.
Perfectly calibrated - for the windshield of the car behind me.