RV vs LAX

The wretched ProFlowers gig was finally over and it was time for festivus part 2.Joshua Tree Music Fest, followed but a 3 day break, then Lightning in a Bottle. So first things first, drop Gatita off at another sitter, arrange supplies, dump the RV refill it head for wonderland. I was en route to LAX to pick up Salah. A friend of a friend (Aisha), who I met while working at the Envision Festival in Costa Rica, that was supposed to come live with me in my RV and travel around the country. We had all these grandiose plans, that started with me, her and Salah going to Joshua Tree, but then she ditched us both and got some dream job in Hawaii. Blah blah blah, who does she think she is!? I kid, I kid, I would have done the same thing in a heartbeat!! But I digress…regardless of not knowing anyone at the Joshua tree festival, I was super stoked. It was still great to get out of town, go to a music festival, make some friends and maybe even earn some money!

Halfway to LAX, I get a phone call from Salah saying that he was going to be a couple hours late. So that was fine, gave me time to go kick it at the beach a little. Got to Huntington, cleaned up the RV and myself, take a little siesta, gave myself a medicinal head change and off I was, back on track to LAX. Now, RVs as it turns out are not at all welcome at the airport, at least not in LAX. They hated me there. First, before I even got into the airport, I had to drive through a police check point. They were letting all the other normal cars go right through, but when I came up, they all threw their hands and freaked out, telling me to pull over. So being a proper, cooperating citizen, with zero contraband, I obeyed. The lady-cop was mean mugging me as she asked me some basic questions, then looked inside the RV and said “Do you live in this thing ma’am?” “Why yes, yes I do, do you like what I’ve done with the place?” She gave me a sad, I feel sorry for you, pitiful look. Or maybe she just was disgusted with my hippy tapestries and feathered flair. The other 2 cops looked inside, saw that I wasn’t smuggling in Mexicans or drugs and that my closet was just full of shoes and sent me on my merry way.

Next step ideally, would be to park, and wait for the arriving passenger. So I pull up to the parking garage. Nope. As it turns out my RV is a bit taller than 7ft. I smashed the air vent and scared the shit out of myself as well as a parking attendant. As I jumped out to look at the damage, he came running and yelled at me with his broken Indian English, that “this car too big, you cannot drive this here! Why you bring this car to airport?!”  Thank you sir, I am now aware of that, and I decided to bring this car, because I don’t have any other options at the moment, thank you for asking. Now where should I park this beast? He instructed me to park on the side lot, which happens to be a security lot and informed me that maybe they’ll let me stay for a few minutes. Nope they didn’t. Lady security kicked me out in seconds and told me to go pull in where all the other cars were waiting. So I cut across a median and like 4 lanes and get to the passenger loading and unloading area and actually do get to wait for like 5 min. Even got a peanut butter and apple snack in me. Until another kind LAX employee shoos me off and tells me to just coast around until my passenger gets there. Does he realize what a pain in the ass that is? Not to mention how much gas this thing eats? Clearly not. So I then decide to stop at another drop off/pick up zone. I bit farther back in the international arrives, where I figured there was plenty of space, I could just hang back for a few minute. There, another brilliant gem of an attendant tells me that I can’t park there, but technically, I am a bus, right? So I should just park under any of the green shuttle/bus signs. I knew he was half-retarded but, fuck it, he told me to do, I’m go with it. So I park under a green sign and 3 min later, my old friend that just shooed me away at another place, laughingly tells me that I can’t park there either. I tell him that his buddy over there, another employee just told me that I was a bus and I could park here. He looked at me like I was crazy and told me to keep coasting and that this is clearly marked for shuttle buses, and the other guy “lied” to me. While I know he didn’t lie to me, he was just tryin to help a sista out, this one just wasn’t having it. So I coast about 4 more times until finally Salah gets off his plane and we are full steam ahead; 25mph in LA traffic, music full blast on an iPhone. I hear this is what they call “living the dream”.