/* gripe starts

Here’s a fact about me: I hate So Cal traffic. I long for a small town like Cabot Cove, Maine or Cicely, Alaska, where sigalerts never rear their ugly heads, and there’s always parking right in front of all the places you need to go. Alas, I’m stuck in L.A. and work in the heart (or at least the spleen) of the city. As I have mentioned before, I take a vanpool to and from work. What I may not have mentioned is the growing feeling I have that the van I ride is cursed. There was the accident, but hey, accidents happen, right? This van (aka this piece of crap) keeps breaking down. It’s happening a couple of times a month. And when it does, the “mechanics” take it and fix it and return it to us saying all is well. HAH! I laugh scoffingly. My eye they fix it! They wash it certainly as it is always very clean after they “fix” it, but it doesn’t run any better. It is especially fond of breaking down (and the breaking down always manifests itself the same way, by suddenly losing all power – I give it high marks for consistency if nothing else) on the Harbor Freeway, a rather busy stretch of highway that runs through downtown. Today it chose to break down in the carpool lane on a slim stretch of shoulder near the center meridian. *sigh* Trucks, buses and cars whizzed past us as we sat there pondering our mortality and whether our wills were all up to date. Finally rescue arrived in the form of a tow truck and CHP officer. The CHP officer did an outstanding traffic break and got us off the freeway (because the van does drive in its broken down state, it just can’t go FAST – a big drawback on the speedway that is the 110). We made our way via surface streets to work and they took the van off we presume to once again get, well, washed for sure, and who knows, maybe even FIXED! Where are those tranporters when we need them?

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