Saturday, July 23, 2005

The Longest 10 Minute Drive in History

I've just arrived back from the Santa Monica Nissan dealership. I had to have my car towed there this morning, as it stopped functioning last night, while I was attempting to drive it around.

So this morning, my dad calls to wake me up, to inform me that I simply must get my car over to the dealership, post-haste. A few phone calls later, and I'm wiping the sleep out of my eyes in Santa Monica, while explaining to the guy that I not only need a new alternator, but also some spare keys, because I have broken the last 500 that have been provided of me. Through absolutely no fault of my own.

Seriously. I'm not abusing these keys. I'm not using them to shiv prison inmates, or to spoon out cocaine or to pry dried-up chewing gum out of the coin slots of pay phones or anything. Just to start my fucking car. But these things snap in two like nothing - they have about as much tensile strength as matzo.

[Do you gentiles get that joke? Matzo is the paper-thin, and might I add horribly disgusting, bread substitute Jews eat on Passover. Although some deeply disturbed Jews, like my friend Jeff, eat it year round.]

Fortunately, Santa Monica Nissan has a shuttle service to drop you off after you've left your car. This is very handy, as I currently have $2 in my pocket, which is only enough scratch to take an LA City Bus home. And I have kind of a rule about riding in LA City buses. And that rule is, "Don't ever ride LA City buses unless it's a dire emergency, such as uncontrollable bleeding from both eye sockets."

Ever wonder how I can be so sure there's no God? Cause I've been on an LA City bus!

If you read that last sentence aloud in a Lewis Black voice, it's about 25% funnier, just so you know.

So I get into the shuttle car and the driver takes off, and I suddenly notice that this car has the worst possible B.O. smell in the world. The. Worst. I had the window all the way open, with my neck craned as far outside as I could get it, and it was still all I could smell.

The odd part is, before we got into the car, I didn't notice the driver himself having a bad B.O. smell. And that's the sort of thing I'd notice, I think. So it could be that it's lingering in the car, like on that "Seinfeld" episode about the B.O. car.

Anyway, that was the longest 10 minute drive in history. I just arrived back home and couldn't resist relating to you all the story of my harrowing trek down the 10 Freeway, in a car that reeked like a Tikrit Bath House.

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