The End of the World
Ohmigosh!! I have seen the end of the world and it was in Los Angeles last weekend!
I came to California to take my 16-year-old grandson Kyle on a weekend date. Kyle and I are experienced travelers--he's heard my worst snoring and I know he stays up all night watching the Food Channel if he can't sleep. We're buds and I'm willing to do just about anything with him because he's not pushy or scarey like other nastier teenagers. He's kind to the old and infirm. He's a nice, clean cut kid, and you have to remember that no matter what I tell you about our experience over the next few paragraphs.
Here was my plan: we would drive up the coast to this darling little motel in this darling little town called Cambria. There were near-by tide pools and complimentary shuffle board and croquet. I can't believe I thought he would do that!!! It's like sometimes when you haven't seen someone in a while you make up this imaginary person that's partly who they used to be and partly your fantasy of them?
WHAT could I have been thinking? He couldn't believe that was even on the table. What HE wanted to do was go to the "Dumb Convention" in Los Angeles. The Dumb Convention? I thought, "This sounds great!" For one, I thought, "My grandson is capable of self-referential irony and he is only 16 years old! How cool is this?" Usually people don't get there until, oh, their late 20's; until after that first total failure to suceed at anything they thought they could do.
Well, the "Dumb Convention," which I was willing to go to, was actually the DUB Convention--billed as the world's largest auto show/rock concert--coming to a town near you. I suddenly wanted to kill myself. I had spent the week before at a motel in Monterey with my seven and three-year-old grandkids, and now this.
I'm a nauseating suck-up when it comes to grandkids and I pretty much turn into a sixth-grader when it comes to being considered cool by them. Pick ME! Pick ME! But this was going to be a huge challenge--I hate cars, especially "pimped out" cars, hip hop music, and I can't count the number of times I've been lost in a big city with a teenager and it's never, ever a happy-making memory.
I had no idea where the LA Convention Center is, but we "Mapquest-ed" and I gave Kyle the print out. For the four hours after we hit the LA city limit, our conversation consisted of, "You shoulda turned there," and "Get in the other lane NOW." When we finally checked into our motel at 11, we were exhausted and ticked.
It's hard to know where to begin describing the world's biggest auto show/rock concert. You know all those things the prophet says are going to happen in the last days?
Well, SURPRISE! Get your year's supply!
The line's were monumental, Seven Wonders of the World quality. I can't remember when I last felt that judgemental. Let's me just sum up: the girls were all almost naked and the boys were almost all tattooed. Lots of tattoos.
And the music was a physical presence. At one point, I hid in the bathroom in that back handicapped stall and tried to remember birdsong. It was awful.
The line to the food was actually and hour and forty-five minutes long. The guy in front of us timed it. And when we got there, four little grandmas were handmaking each individual pizza in a toaster oven! Only in California.
The good news is that I think Kyle was as overwhelmed as I was. It's one thing to turn up your radio at the stop light when you live in a small town with a mom who constantly reminds you to be good; a whole 'nother deal when you see a hundred thousand people who all act that way. We talked about it on the way home and neither one of us could have imagined the scope of this experience. I don't think we'll ever go to Cambria and play croquet, but next time, we might just go to a movie.
I came to California to take my 16-year-old grandson Kyle on a weekend date. Kyle and I are experienced travelers--he's heard my worst snoring and I know he stays up all night watching the Food Channel if he can't sleep. We're buds and I'm willing to do just about anything with him because he's not pushy or scarey like other nastier teenagers. He's kind to the old and infirm. He's a nice, clean cut kid, and you have to remember that no matter what I tell you about our experience over the next few paragraphs.
Here was my plan: we would drive up the coast to this darling little motel in this darling little town called Cambria. There were near-by tide pools and complimentary shuffle board and croquet. I can't believe I thought he would do that!!! It's like sometimes when you haven't seen someone in a while you make up this imaginary person that's partly who they used to be and partly your fantasy of them?
WHAT could I have been thinking? He couldn't believe that was even on the table. What HE wanted to do was go to the "Dumb Convention" in Los Angeles. The Dumb Convention? I thought, "This sounds great!" For one, I thought, "My grandson is capable of self-referential irony and he is only 16 years old! How cool is this?" Usually people don't get there until, oh, their late 20's; until after that first total failure to suceed at anything they thought they could do.
Well, the "Dumb Convention," which I was willing to go to, was actually the DUB Convention--billed as the world's largest auto show/rock concert--coming to a town near you. I suddenly wanted to kill myself. I had spent the week before at a motel in Monterey with my seven and three-year-old grandkids, and now this.
I'm a nauseating suck-up when it comes to grandkids and I pretty much turn into a sixth-grader when it comes to being considered cool by them. Pick ME! Pick ME! But this was going to be a huge challenge--I hate cars, especially "pimped out" cars, hip hop music, and I can't count the number of times I've been lost in a big city with a teenager and it's never, ever a happy-making memory.
I had no idea where the LA Convention Center is, but we "Mapquest-ed" and I gave Kyle the print out. For the four hours after we hit the LA city limit, our conversation consisted of, "You shoulda turned there," and "Get in the other lane NOW." When we finally checked into our motel at 11, we were exhausted and ticked.
It's hard to know where to begin describing the world's biggest auto show/rock concert. You know all those things the prophet says are going to happen in the last days?
Well, SURPRISE! Get your year's supply!
The line's were monumental, Seven Wonders of the World quality. I can't remember when I last felt that judgemental. Let's me just sum up: the girls were all almost naked and the boys were almost all tattooed. Lots of tattoos.
And the music was a physical presence. At one point, I hid in the bathroom in that back handicapped stall and tried to remember birdsong. It was awful.
The line to the food was actually and hour and forty-five minutes long. The guy in front of us timed it. And when we got there, four little grandmas were handmaking each individual pizza in a toaster oven! Only in California.
The good news is that I think Kyle was as overwhelmed as I was. It's one thing to turn up your radio at the stop light when you live in a small town with a mom who constantly reminds you to be good; a whole 'nother deal when you see a hundred thousand people who all act that way. We talked about it on the way home and neither one of us could have imagined the scope of this experience. I don't think we'll ever go to Cambria and play croquet, but next time, we might just go to a movie.
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