Remembering Bonfires of The Vanities ... aka "Lost in LA".

When our flight got in at LAX we needed to call the shuttle service for the private Parking Garage we’d stored our car at. When we booked with them we were told it would only take them 10 to 15 minutes to come retrieve us. 40 minutes later our shuttle arrived, after having bypassed us twice!! Rod called them TWICE and each time they had some excuse of course. When it finally DID stop we were filed to the back of the bus and in the next few stops as we drove the airport circuit, the bus filled to OVER capacity, we were stuffed in the back barely able to breathe! No one was happy!

We got back to the parking garage, retrieved our rig and headed out. Now within 5 minutes we should have been on our way up the 405, but as we drove (and by now its 10 pm at nite) I realize nothing looks familiar. I ask Rod where the heck are we, expecting him to tell me, as he always knows. Instead he tells me he hasn’t a clue, his gps isn’t working! So we continue to drive further and further into the dark city, until I finally tell him he needs to just turn around and go back to the airport OR stop and ask directions.

Well those are dirty words to my husband, “stop and ask directions?” Pshaw!!! Bite your tongue woman! Well by midnite and miles of mindless driving, no doubt in circles in the inner dark and empty (one hopes!) streets of LA, finally tiring of his very UNhappy wife’s exasperated pleading to stop and ask directions (!!!) he finally does. One particular scene from the 1990’s movie Bonfires of The Vanities popped into my mind, the part where this wall street scion (Tom Hanks) and his mistress (Melanie Griffith) accidentally get lost, enter the Bronx at night while they are driving to Manhattan from Kennedy Airport and find the ramp back to the highway blocked by trash cans and a tire. Well that’s sort of what I was expecting to find every time we turned a corner in this dark and empty part of the city!!

Needless to say we got the directions we needed and turned out had been mere blocks from the 405 all along! We arrived home in Bako at 2 am. LONG DAY!