Hell-A
Los Angeles - The next stop on this summer's 'They're Sending Me *Where*?' tour...
9:00 a.m. and I was ascending through the chemical haze into the brown foothills above Los Angeles, the handy GPS clipped to the dashboard feeding me directions every 10-odd miles (“Take the next right”/”Stay to the left”). It was dry and hot and that was precisely why I was here: To spend the day hanging out with the aviators who fly those giant water-spewing supertankers over the forest fires threatening to destroy acres of very expensive Southern California property.
I am not very comfortable with driving. Partially this is because I learned on a snarky stick-shift with a seemingly variable friction point, partially because at 16 I was almost killed while driving by a woman who did a very stupid thing. As with so many things, it left me with unshakeable neuroses, a tendency to sweat while behind the wheel, an urge to stick to driving in the early morning hours when it’s just you and the deer and a few truckers.
Anyway, this is the cure: Strap the neurotic patient into a rental car with a sticky accelerator and then send them bombing down I-15 S from Victorville at 4:45 on a clear afternoon. Join the rest of the herd zooming along at 85-90 mph down steep switchbacks and over suspension-rattling thumps…building enough momentum by the end of that 15-mile stretch so you hit the concrete spaghetti of the LA highway system with the car shimmying on its axles from the speed. “I’m not dead,” I said to myself, half-wonderingly, half-expecting the universe in its infinite sense of humor to send an 18-wheeler crunching into me at that precise moment.
“Take the next exit,” the GPS told me.
“I love you, too,” I told the GPS.
Then we hit traffic. If '24' wanted to be realistic, they could do an episode where Jack Bauer shoots a whole bunch of people in the first two minutes, gets into his car to drive to his next destination...and sits in traffic for the remaining 54:30. Tapping his fingers against the wheel. Cleaning his gun. Practicing shouting "Damnit!" to nobody in particular.
9:00 a.m. and I was ascending through the chemical haze into the brown foothills above Los Angeles, the handy GPS clipped to the dashboard feeding me directions every 10-odd miles (“Take the next right”/”Stay to the left”). It was dry and hot and that was precisely why I was here: To spend the day hanging out with the aviators who fly those giant water-spewing supertankers over the forest fires threatening to destroy acres of very expensive Southern California property.
I am not very comfortable with driving. Partially this is because I learned on a snarky stick-shift with a seemingly variable friction point, partially because at 16 I was almost killed while driving by a woman who did a very stupid thing. As with so many things, it left me with unshakeable neuroses, a tendency to sweat while behind the wheel, an urge to stick to driving in the early morning hours when it’s just you and the deer and a few truckers.
Anyway, this is the cure: Strap the neurotic patient into a rental car with a sticky accelerator and then send them bombing down I-15 S from Victorville at 4:45 on a clear afternoon. Join the rest of the herd zooming along at 85-90 mph down steep switchbacks and over suspension-rattling thumps…building enough momentum by the end of that 15-mile stretch so you hit the concrete spaghetti of the LA highway system with the car shimmying on its axles from the speed. “I’m not dead,” I said to myself, half-wonderingly, half-expecting the universe in its infinite sense of humor to send an 18-wheeler crunching into me at that precise moment.
“Take the next exit,” the GPS told me.
“I love you, too,” I told the GPS.
Then we hit traffic. If '24' wanted to be realistic, they could do an episode where Jack Bauer shoots a whole bunch of people in the first two minutes, gets into his car to drive to his next destination...and sits in traffic for the remaining 54:30. Tapping his fingers against the wheel. Cleaning his gun. Practicing shouting "Damnit!" to nobody in particular.
posted by NiK @ 10:55 PM
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