Boys Night Out.

Woke up Thanksgiving eve in a gray haze of a mood.  You might be familiar with it.  Feels like rain is near, getting out of bed has more to do with too much sleep rather than being well rested.  You move from bed to kitchen, jibber jabber about where your life is at plague your thoughts…a lot of questions but no answers that apply to the moment of grayness.  I guess it’s typical for a man in his thirties.  Well I hope it is…The thoughtless, carefree attitude of my twenties is replaced by “Stuff”...a whole bunch of “Stuff”… “Stuff”, I never imagined I’d be concerned with. “Stuff”, I don’t want to be concerned with now.  I guess one has to deal with this “Stuff” at some point in their adult life… but I never thought it would come so soon. Never thought it would consume my mornings. prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /

 Can’t remember much more of the morning, mostly a blur.  I prefer blur, better that way.  Who wants to reminisce about a bunch of useless “Stuff”, anyway.  The saving grace that day was an email from Justin about having dinner with Roger and Dustin in Alhambra.  A bunch of emails followed about distance concerns, traffic,etc. In our twenties distance and traffic was never a factor in our decision-making.  A sign of maturity?  Maybe. Or just lameness.  Anyway, we ended up deciding on Won Kok in Chinatown.  Can’t recommend this place for fine cuisine, it’s more of a nostalgia thing.  We have a unique relationship with a waiter there named MJ.  Don’t ask me what MJ stands for.  MJ has been there for years.  During the Better Luck Tomorrow days we went to Won Kok because it was cheap, plentiful and MJ didn’t treat us like second class.  In a way he’s been there from the beginning.  In a way he’s family.  Even though, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know any of our names.  He may know Justin’s name from the Chinese papers, but I know for a fact he doesn’t know mine.  I think he calls me “Korean”… Just “Korean”…But it’s ok… some things are better left unknown.  I don’t really want to know what MJ stands for either. I like MJ just the way he is. Justin really wanted Dustin to meet MJ…he wanted to introduce Dustin to our uncle MJ.  Kinda of a right of passage.  Unfortunately, it happened to be his day off so we managed without MJ’s rants about hi-fi stereos and his 200-inch projection system.  We entertained ourselves, we ate greasy Chinese food, conversed about career, politics, and the writers strike, world take over by Google, Mel Gibson, racism, and our future movies.  4 1/2 hours later all the “Stuff”, I was stressing about earlier seemed to take a back seat to “a night out with the boys”.  The relief of not being alone in this world settled into my mind.  I felt good.  I felt happy for the first time that day.  I thought to myself, I guess this is what friends are for.  Isn’t that a Dion Warwick song?  We gave each other manly pats on the back and strutted our separate ways.  Before I drove away I watched the boys leave, in away I wanted to see them off.  For peace of mind and an unsaid thank you to them.  They drove away into the fog that was coming in.  Taillights blurred into the haze of white.  The evening with the boys was at an end.  Now I had to navigate home through this fog.  Fog is a welcomed event for me, nice to have some change in this monotonous beautiful LA weather.  I sat in my car and watched the fog blanket the littered downtown landscape.  How cinematic I thought.  I reversed and headed for the 101n freeway.  One of my favorite songs, Marvin Gaye’s, let’s get in on was playing on the radio.  Except for the lack of visibility, life couldn’t be better.  

Thu thump, Thu thump…damn. That sound…I heard that before.  The low profile tires that came with my car are prone to flats.  I must have changed tires 6 times already…”note to self, stay away from sport sedans with useless sport tires…I don’t go past 60mph anyway.”  I pulled over and cursed the Michelin man and God for my distress. Why me?  The evening was going so well, man I just wanted to get home and eat some cashews.  Now, how do I change the damn tire?   I’ve have a theory the Germans jimmy the tools so that Americans can’t figure out how to change their tires.  Each time I tried, each time I failed to get the tools to work.  So, like other the 6 times, I pressed the SOS button on the On Star thing and waited for some other dude to come and remind me I was less man than he.  Great…I already have issues, now this.   At least the ladies voice from On Star was sexy. She said, “A representative will be there within 30 minutes to assist me with my roadside issues.”  It’s a flat, but she was right, it is an issue as well.  Makes it sound like a bigger deal than just a flat.  I fiddled with the radio for a bit couldn’t find anything to kill my anxiety; I quit smoking last year so I didn’t have that to keep me brain dead. It couldn’t have been but 5 minutes when a knock on the window scared the crap out of me.  It was the roadside assistance guy.  I jumped out and greeted him…got nothing back.  He was in his fifties, moustache, and parted hair.  Like an overweight Hitler.  He wore an overall uniform and carried a clipboard.  He just stared at me, like I owed him money.  With the fog and downtown thing going on, this was scene out of the Ted Bundy movie.  I barked a few “yo’s and “what’s up mans”, but he just stared back.  I figured it was time to retreat to the car, just then he mumbled something about “pension.”  The only thing I could respond with was “huh?” I didn’t know how to respond…  instead I walked around to the back of my car so there was at least some distance between us before he pulled out a knife and fork to eat me.  Then he spits out, “I got three years left until pension and they fire me today…this isn’t right…this isn’t right.”  I’m thinking this dude is on something.  But I went along… I asked what he got fired for…he says, “Big brother says their cutting back.”…Big Brother?  Must be a part of a cult…a Nazi cult!  I had enough, I started towards my door, the guy throws a pager at me and yells, “ I quit you take it”.  The pager dropped to the ground and shattered in about four pieces.  I picked it up, by the time I got up Hitler was already in his truck driving into the fog.  Weird huh?  That’s nothing.  I pressed the SOS button on the On Star and told them about crystal meth Hitler.  This time it was a guy, no sexy time voice.  He said the rep was on his way and they apologized, there was a back up that night.  I told the guy about Hitler and he said that was not possible.  He just spoke with their guy.  As I argued my case I saw another SUV pull up behind me.  I was confused.  It turned out to be the real roadside assistance and within 15 minutes I was on the road home.  What the hell just happened? What the hell is this pager?  When I got home I turned the old ass pager on.  Nothing, no old numbers, nothing but the on signal.  Let’s see if Hitler calls for it back.  Have a good one all.