A Day in the Life

My life has grown dull. Not that it hasn't been dull all along. But it has grown dull in a new way. In a non-blogworthy way. So, you'll forgive me if I'm stretching it a bit with this post. But I've had two strange encounters with two Los Angelinos in the last two days, and I figured, since nothing else of note seems to be happening to me lately, I might as well report on that.

The first incident occured the other day at Laser Blazer. A man, whose name I could provide you, because I remember it, came into the store and purchased a copy of the venerable James Bond favorite Diamonds are Forever. This is not what I'd call first-tier Bond, but it has Connery, so it's better than most.

And about one minute (actually, less than one minute) after the transaction was completed, The Customer (Mr......No, I can't...That would be wrong...But his first name rhymes with "wan") asked if he could return it. Which normally would be fine.

But here's the thing. He said that he wanted to buy the movie, but that he owned a copy of Hero that he wanted to bring into the store and exchange.

But he didn't have a copy of Hero with him. In fact, he had nothing with him. Except the copy of Diamonds are Forever, which he now said he didn't want, even though he actually did want it. We kept going on like this for about 20 minutes.

Here's my theory: We don't offer cash back for returns, only store credit. So, he couldn't just get his money back for Diamonds are Forever, he could only get credit to pick out another DVD. But what he really had wanted to do, and just forgot or something, was to return Hero and use the credit from that movie to buy Diamonds are Forever. But of course, he couldn't do that, because he hadn't brought Hero to the store. And he'd already bought Diamonds are Forever.

It's retarded and confusing, and the guy was very insistant that what he wanted made sense and that he was not an idiot. But, like in so many other areas of life, I'm sure, he discovered that he was wrong.

Okay, on to the second odd incident that made me reflect on the relative craziness of my fellow citizens here in the Wasteland.

I'm parallel parking today after work. As I begin to back my car up, a maroon Volvo behind me, coming up the street, begins honking at me. Soon, the honking becomes more adamant. I make the international symbol for "go around me, jagoff" by waving my arm out the window, but the Volvo continues sitting motionless and honking.

So, I turn to see what they want, and there's a woman in the car loudly yelling at me.

But I'm in a car and she's in a car and there's other traffic and I can't hear a goddamn word she's saying. So, I park. And then she pulls up next to me (blocking traffic in one direction, mind you).

"You just hit that other car!" she yells at me, while gesturing to the white Toyota behind me.

"No, I didn't...I just backed up...You started honking before I had even parked," I responded, reasonably.

"I saw you! You just hit that car!"

Now, folks, I have no reason to lie. If I had slammed into a car tonight and tried to get away with it, I would fess up to you good people. Or, more realistically, I would not have brought this up as a blog item at all, content to review some obscure Japanese movie or regale you with just the one anecdote about the crazy guy trying to return a movie he hadn't brought with him.

But I hadn't slammed into a car, or even love-tapped another car, as is my right as a parallel parker in Los Angeles.

Eventually, due to the honks of I would estimate 500,000 other motorists, the crazy Volvo lady moved on, possibly to harrass some other guy in some other car across town. In any case, I suspect she's due back at Hogwarts soon for the start of the Spring Semester, so let's hope I don't run afoul of her again in the near future.

So, that's about the most interesting stuff that's happened to me in the past few days. Oh, and I mooched some money off of my parents. And I watched Radio with Cuba Gooding Jr. with my roommates. It's unimaginably offensive to both the viewer and retarded people in general.