Mustang Smelly

Sometimes when something goes wrong, like when my bathroom ceiling collapses on me while I'm in the shower, or when cockroaches are climbing the walls of the hallways in my apartment building, or when it's 20 degrees for the eightieth day in a row, I get really frustrated and I think to myself, THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN LOS ANGELES. But the fact is that things go wrong wherever we live and sometimes it helps to remember that life is never perfect anywhere.

When Los Angeles was home, there was a brief period of time during which Mike owned two cars. He had purchased a truck to replace his red Mustang convertible (which he wanted to replace because while a red Mustang convertible seemed like a good idea when we bought it, it really just drained us of money and caused lots of near brain explosions) and until he sold the Mustang, he had both to deal with. Before he sold her (we called the Mustang Ginger and so she was a 'her') he spent several days washing her and waxing her, he shampooed her carpets and oiled her leather interior, he detailed that car like a car has never been detailed. She was absolutely gorgeous when he was done, so gorgeous that I wanted to go for a ride right then and there but he would not drive her. He wanted her to stay pristine while he was showing her. And so Ginger sat alone, perfect and un-touched, in front of our sunny little bungalow.

A few days later I came home from work to a very, very unhappy husband. In the middle of the night, someone had broken into the truck and stolen all of Michael's tools and all of his work equipment. Several thousand dollars worth of equipment. And then they had stolen the spare clicker to the Mustang, which he'd thought would be safe in the truck's glove compartment. Not the keys, mind you. The keys were in our house. Just the clicker that unlocked the doors. The good news was that Ginger was still parked right where we'd left her. The bad news was that someone had made her their party lounge for the night. Burger King food wrappers littered her interior. An over-turned cup of soda was stuck to the drivers seat, dried coca-cola sticky on the leather. Cigarette butts and used matches overflowed from the ashtray and littered the carpet. The leather seats were pocked with burn marks. A ratty, filthy blanket was draped across the front passenger seat and the seat was pushed all the way back so someone could sleep on it comfortably. The battery was dead, apparently because they'd left the inside lights on all night. And the crowning achievement? The icing on the filthy cake? The back seat carpets were soaked in urine.

Do you know what I said when Mike showed me the ruined car? I said: THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN THE VALLEY.