High Class Hookers

I got the phonecall a mere 30 minutes notice for a 6 o'clock pm pick up at an address in Old Town. Mildly perturbed, I had to put down my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and get dressed. I pulled up to the address and out from the overpriced townhomes emerged a couple of middle aged bimbos adorned with the typical habiliments of their profession. Both women had to-go cups of frosty margaritas, replete with umbrellas, in their hands and purses slung over their shoulders. They got themselves settled in the back of my car, upon which, my senses were flooded with an obnoxious mixture of powerful perfumes. Immediately, they told me to turn on 101.9 FM and I obliged. It appeared they were fixing their makeup for the entire hour-long ride as they alternated animated confabulations amongst themselves and with the random men calling their cellphones, to which they responded with succinct male ego-flattering smalltalk. As we made our way to the elite countryclub, I learned all about their day: Woke up at 11am, played volleyball on the beach for a couple hours, came home and showered, margaritas in the blender at 2 o'clock and now they are on their way to work, which is, ostensibly, to bang rich guys. We pulled up to our destination and were greeted by a young pimply faced punk doing an extremely lax job of "security" at the gate. He nonchalantly waved us in, not even bothering to check for identification. We proceeded down a well-manicured, tree-lined, winding path toward the clubhouse. The women had quieted down a little, expressing their approval of the number of Bentley's being parked by the valet. In front of us, a mysterious red Lamborghini stopped and waited for the valet. The women eagerly anticipated and fantasized a handsome young man as the vehicle's owner. The suspense was unbearable! Finally, the door vertically arose and out shuffled an aging tub-o-guts wearing a most ridiculous outfit: pleated baggy white slacks, beige penny loafers and a black button-up shirt with some sort of gold corporate insignia embroidered on the back . The women gasped and I chortled.

The Hillside Strangler Carbecue

My inner glow of glee began to wan as I approached the Hillside Strangler, the appellation of an odious triadic junction of highways located in the suburb, Hillside. The traffic merges into the other, concomitantly bottlenecking and thus "strangling" the flow of traffic, resulting in a tedious bumper to bumper crawl, regardless of the time of day. Today, as we sunk deeper into the tangled mess, there rose ashes and black smoke into the sky. It appeared there was a 5-car pile up roasting on the highway, upon which, every passing vehicle felt the need to slow down and voyeuristically gape at the carnage. Such spectacles are such a common occurance in my absurd profession that I've developed a rather cavalier attitude of such matters, however, this time I could actually see a couple of people standing outside the burning wreckage of their cars, in a daze, covered in blood. Apparently, the accident had only just occured minutes earlier. I suddenly became acutely aware of the somnolent chirring of the 17-year cicadas and of the approaching sirens, the auditory duality of which put me under a hypnotic spell. The traffic then began to break apart and disperse. As I accelerated to 80mph, the light in the sky faded to a soft pink and the evening sun floated low upon the horizon. The ethereal rosy effulgence blanketed the sprawling landscape of endless highways and dismal powerline towers, rendering the formerly ghastly scene an opiated amethyst hallucination.

Drossy Drudgery

I arose around 11am this morning after a rather unsound slumber. Nightmares of the groom I drove the night before handing me a $100 tip and after stuffing it into my pocket, I discover later that it was lost, all that time wasted. I was semi-conscious of my cat attempting to rouse me, as is her morning ritual. As I sat on the edge of my bed in the darkness, mildly aware of the presence of the air-conditioner blowing out cool air, I felt a profound sense of complete and hopeless despair enveloping me. The kind of dysphoria that reduces me to a useless, catatonic lump of flesh. A slideshow of all my failures and desultory, bleak future pointing fingers and laughing in my face. The disequilibrium of my schedule makes days melt together, one indiscernable from the next. Time evaporates on the streets, sitting in traffic, endless construction. Sometimes I act as a psychologist, absorbing strangers problems or observing young bachelorettes wax maudlin late at night. Very few people actually have anything relevant or interesting to say after all the polite smalltalk has dribbled out their lips. I drove a doctor from Salt Lake City a couple days ago and had a good conversation with him about his research of a rare blood disease and the organisms that inhabit the mysterious Great Salt Lake. I don't know where this is going. I'm making a Screwdriver.