LA Welcomes Me Back

After a month of traveling about 12,000 miles, I have returned to Los Angeles. Last night, it gave me quite the welcome back kick in the ass.

I was driving to a bar. I came across this intersection (in the black circle):



As you can see, it's a little bit tricky. If you're on Sunset, traveling east, you come to a light and there are three lanes. From the left lane, you can either go left onto Hollywood Blvd or straight (drawn in sinful red) onto Sunset Dr. From the middle and right lanes, you have to bend right and stay on Sunset (drawn in yellow of goodness). There is a huge sign above the intersection that tells you this, because it is confusing. But I know it well because I OWNED that intersection when I first moved out here, as I was staying with a friend who lived near it and had to drive through it five times a day in my quest for apartments west of Virgil Ave.

So I was in the center lane. A truck was in the left lane. When the light turned green, I bent right and continued to travel on Sunset. I heard an angry honking behind me, and saw the truck in my rearview mirror, its driver shaking his fist at me because he thought I had cut him off. I was in no mood for this, so I flipped him off. And then he decided to get revenge by speeding past me in the right lane and cutting me off in the left lane, like, his penis must be SO BIG for him to do that. What a man he is, cutting off the girl in the little red Ford Focus hatchback.

So of course, we found ourselves idling next to each other at the next stoplight. Truck guy rolled his window down and expressed an intention to talk to me. He was on my passenger side, and I don't have automatic windows, so I had to bend over and manually roll my passenger side window down.

Truck: Do you know how to drive?
Sara: Do you know how to fucking read?
Truck: Do you know how to fucking drive?
Sara: Do you know how to fucking read?
(awkward pause)
Sara: There was a sign right there, it said the two right lanes turn right. Your left lane is supposed to turn left or go straight.
Truck: Do you know how to fucking drive?
Sara: Yeah, I didn't cut you off, go back and read the fucking sign, okay? You'll see I'm right.
Truck: No.

And there really wasn't anything to say after that. So we both sat there trying not to look at each other until the light turned green. Which happened like twenty minutes later. A very awkward twenty minutes later.

At the next stoplight, this was going to be repeated, so he actually stopped his truck a good ten feet behind my passenger side window, which was still rolled down and ready for battle, mostly because I didn't feel like bending over again to roll it up. But anyway, he backed down first so that means I won. I hope he learned his lesson, which is not to mess with me when I'm on my way to meet friends at a bar and I'm at the center of a fiery ball of self-righteousness.

I as well will be learning a lesson about not cussing out big men at night when my mom reads this entry and calls me to tell me why what I did last night could have gotten me killed. Wheee!