| previous page<<< cocketiels had been featured walking out on stage and dancing about. She couldn't shut up about how cute they were and how fun it was doing the play. I began feeling sorry for all the animals that she had undoubtedly tortured throughout her life. These three cocketiels must have suffered through countless rehersals and painstaking reenactments all for the purpose of amusing a small group of students and parents with their obscure abilities. This chick was sick, to say the least. Before Julianne and had entered the airport, we established a signal that I could give her to alert her that I was getting really bored and that we should leave. The signal I chose was from a very special episode of Malcolm in the Middle. It involved my making a loop by connecting my thumb and index finger, then simply spreading out the rest of my fingers. After sitting at gate 69B for about five minutes we decided to head out. I was unaware of our final destination and my lacking to inquire as to what it was would lead to my downfall. There had been talk of stopping at a coffee shop or something similar so that Julianne and the nameless one could continue chattering away. On our little voyage we encountered an escalator. Upon boarding, I was one step below Julianne. I pretended to scratch my head while waving "the signal" frantically at Julianne, but it was obvious she either didn't notice or was having so much fun that she didn't care. We walked past several gates, we were back out on the street again. I knew that there were no coffee shops out on the street, so I was baffled as to the purpose of our visit to this strange land. The older woman who was accompanying us decided to "light up" and so we stood around waiting while she indulged herself in her disgusting habit. Soon afterwards, we found ourselves crossing the street to get to the center island. After standing around, becoming ever more confused, somebody said (not to me, but I overheard it) that we were going to get on a bus to go to the International terminal. I tried to object, but my opinion doesn't matter in any issues involving people I don't know. We boarded the bus marked "A", which was highly overcrowded with people that had obviously forsaken deodorant. I had to stand up while the bus pushed forward. At the several stops inbetween where we had been and where we were going, I was whacked several times in the legs with people's luggage. L.A., unlike many major cities, is not filled with angry people. It's filled with apathetic people. While in places like New York or Chicago, the people would say something angrily to get you to move your butt, in L.A., people just run into you and move on with their lives as if nothing ever happened. I continued to endure Los Angeles' apathy for the rest of the bus trip, while people stomped on my feet and breathed their unclean breath into my face. Through some unprecidented stroke of unforseen luck, we finally reached the International terminal. By the time we reached it, the bus was mostly empty, so I could not seek revenge upon the people that had trampled over me. We walked inside and up some stairs where we were confronted by a metal detector. I took some initiative for the first time that night and passed through the detector first. Julianne followed and there were no problems. Third was that obnoxious girl. She got stuck in it for some random metal object that she couldn't easily remove from her person. While she was caught in this fiasco, I pulled Julianne over to the side, shoved "the signal" in her face and exclaimed, "Have you ever seen one of THESE before!?!" She started laughing in my face like she always does when I try to be serious and told me that we were going to leave in a minute. I asked her why the hell we had gotten on that stupid bus and traveled light years away from her parked car and she really didn't have a good explaination for it. At this time, that twisted girl had finally managed to remove her violating metal object and had made it at long last through the detector. After everyone was finally through the detector, we walked down a short ramp and ended up next to some L.A. novelty shop. Julianne said that we were going to leave in a minute and the girl decided to take this opportunity to take pictures. I assumed that because I didn't know her, she would only take pictures of Julianne, but such wasn't the case. I was in at least two of these pictures which this girl would probably haul all the way back to Chicago and put on her nightstand to remain there for the rest of her life. We said our final goodbyes to the nameless one and her small posse of misenthropes and freed ourself of the bondage of boredom. Out past the metal detectors and down an escalator, we found our way outside again. We had to catch the bus...the "A" bus. To dig up some information on the bus, we employed the services of a kindly, but confused cart attendant. While he was thrusting his final cart into the recepticle, Julianne inquired about the bus, and the man directed us to a set of static folding chairs where we were to wait. So, we unfolded ourselves some chairs and rested upon them. After a few short minutes, we saw a bus marked "A" heading our direction. It stopped at a similar set of chairs about fifty yards to the left of us. I asked Julianne if we should run over to it, and she reassured me that the bus would stop specifically for us at the place we were currently residing at. The bus picked up a small party of people and started up again. It started going faster...and faster...and faster, and when it came within a few feet of us, it showed no sign of slowing down, and indeed it did not. Julianne having been discouraged immediately threw a fit whilst the kindly cart attendant walked over and tapped me on the shoulder. He apologized and told us that he meant to direct us to the set of chairs where the bus had actually stopped. We got up and walked sullenly over to the designated area and sat down once again. After about another five minutes of waiting, another "A" bus came back around. We boarded it and to my surprise, it was filled with nobody except for ourselves and the driver. Unlike the previous bus trip that had been filled with rapists and murderers, this was a far more laid back trip and I actually got to sit within reasonable proximity to Julianne. No more people falling over my feet and wreaking havoc upon my nasil cavity...no sir. In fact, the bus driver actually spoke specifically to us instead of calling out over the microphone our next destination. We finally arrived back at terminal 7, where we had parked what seemed to be days earlier. We jumped in Julianne's profusely underpowered Inifiniti G20 and started toward the 3rd Street Promenade, about fifteen minutes away. We continued to drive, noticing that we had started at about 87th Street and we were of coures trying to reach 3rd Street. Elementary arithmetic would've indicated that we were REALLY far away, but fortunately, this was not the case. Somewhere in the middle, the street numbers made a gargantuan leap to about 5th Street, and from there we could extrapolate how to reach our destination. We found the proper street and then began traipsing around, trying to find adequet parking. There were several thousand lots to choose from, but the ones within reasonable proximity of our destination charged unfair amounts of money. So, we found a small, low-security lot, and paid about seven bucks to park there. We got out of the car and found our way to the Promenade. It was filled with a richly diverse crowd of people visiting various retail establishments including many confused individuals trying to peddle useless crap out of kiosks and essentially bothering the hell out of anyone brave enough to pass by. In addition to retailers, there were several demonstrations of talent. Among these demonstrations was a guy dressed completely in silver, carrying a big, silver 80s boombox, and doing the robot. There was a young boy ripping some phat guitar licks that masters like myself can only dream about. There were a group of people having a little "game show" with various quiz questions that actually turned out to be next page >>> |