Where The Hell Do You Think You Are?

Last Friday, I got a phone call from Angelica, asking me if I would be able to go to the Dodgers game that night. In spite of the fact that I had a crapload of work to do and knew I would end up regretting it later on that weekend, I decided to go anyway. I knew I would hate myself for the rest of my life if the Dodgers had ended up clinching the division title that night and I'd turned down the chance to go.

(Sadly, they decided to wait until the next night to win the game...most likely because they knew I was there.)

As I boarded the metro in Pasadena and began the nearly forty-five minute ride downtown to Union Station, it occurred to me that there was something wrong with the entire situation.

Here I was, riding on the metro yellow line to Union Station in order to watch a major sporting event. To make matters worse, Angie and company were riding the red line, and we were all supposed to meet there at the station.

After arriving and bumping into them just after exiting the train, we walked across the street and down a few blocks to a sandwich shop called Phillipes, which is renowned for their French Dip sandwiches. The restaurant was crowded with wall-to-wall Dodgers fans, and it took nearly fifteen minutes to get to the register.

As I stood in line there, surrounded by countless people in Dodgers uniforms identifying themselves as Shawn Green, it occurred to me that the whole situation was just not...LA.

Maybe in New York, or Boston, or Philly, one might avail themselves of public transportation, meet a group of friends downtown, walk to a deli, then attend a baseball game between two teams competing for a division championship.

But not here! This is Los Angeles...we don't take public transportation, and we sure as hell don't walk anywhere.

As we left Phillipes and made our way back to Union Station to catch the shuttle to Dodger Stadium, I began to wonder if I'd somehow been transported to a real city, rather than this sprawling, hellish, megalopolis in which I live.

We arrived back at the station and realized that we did not know from where the shuttle departed. Seeing an information booth, we walked over and asked the extremely attractive blonde attendant where we could catch the shuttle to the stadium.

"Oh," she responded. "I don't actually know. I'm not a real information clerk!"

Seeing our confused looks, she elaborated further.

"I'm an actress," she said with a smile. "We're currently filming a scene for the show JAG here. I think there's a real information booth over there somewhere."

With that, my panic of having been somehow transported to a different city disappeared.

We were definitely still in LA.