5:37 p.m. - 2002-07-24
off the 10
The radio man says something about E. coli; something about a murdered girl, DNA evidence and traffic coming up "on the ones". It's 100 degrees outside and the cow concentration camps are boiling at full fester. Rolling-up-the-windows-and-turning-on-the-AC is no defense against it. This stench defines Mira Loma. It permeates the indistinguishable industrial complexes that squat here on indistinguishable tracts of desert floor; it permeates the clothing and the hair of the incognizant locals munching cheeseburgers at drive-in picnic tables. I've lived on a farm, man, in farm country...happy feces don't smell like this. I squint towards the east, but a cyclorama of smog obscures every avenue of escape.
It was pretty much an all out sensory assault, my commute to Mira Loma last week. Brutal, with the only bit of scenic respite provided by three miniature golf courses. Two were off the 10 and of the arcade & batting-cages variety; the other located where the 15 intersects the Pomona freeway. That one featured all of the above attractions plus some sketchy looking "rides"...
I think I still view these places w/residual anxiety, back from when we used to pass 'em on road trips when I was a kid. My sister or I would spot a krazy miniature windmill or a jovial stucco sea-monster or some other harbinger of family amusement on the road ahead, and our little heart-rates would jump. Aware that the chances of stopping were slim, I would entreat my parents first by appealing to self-interest ("anybody else need to stretch out the ol' legs?...um, you like taffy, don't you mom?...c'mon dad it's GOLF!"), a tact that, as the attraction loomed nearer, gave way to impossible promises and bald-faced lies ("just 3 rides...and we'll be quiet for the rest of the trip...Jesus Christ! I think it's my appendix!"). My sister was more of a realist. She would forgo any pretense of logic to claw at the windows and bewail the gross injustice of the whole situation. Her crying and my pleading would build to a crescendo and then, maybe thirty yards away from the park entrance, we'd stop. Silence would grip the station wagon as we held our breath, hoping against hope that my dad's hand would, just this once, engage the turn signal...which it never did. We'd go speeding past, and my sister and I would howl in unison the long, agonized, cry of children who realize they're being raised by fascists. In our frustration, we'd turn on each other and 15, maybe 20, miles of savage, back seat, punching would ensue.
So the thing is, last week, I drove past these "attractions" twice daily and never once stopped. Never got out to wield a quixotic putter, never stepped into the cool arcade to shake the rust off my Defender chops (to show these atari kids how we did it pre reset-button, back when every go-round cost ya hard silver, mate). It's like, every day last week I reneged on a promise I'd made my juvenile self and that got me thinking. Does any aspect of my adult life live up to my youthful expectations? Which, of all the things I swore I'd do once I was an adult-free-and-clear, have I actually done? Sadly, I could only think of three: 1. Eat fast food three times a day, every day 2. Clean my room only when I want to which is never, and 3. Confirm for a fact that the super-hot-and-single jr. high school teachers who look like they'd be crazy nymphs in the sack are in fact crazy nymphs in the sack. The rest has been kind of a bust. There's no shark aquarium wall in my apartment or trampoline out back, my van totally lacks a badass dragon mural and like, I ain't about to get that any of that done on my current salary, which is well below what I'd be making had I realized either of my target career goals of pro-surfer or roller-coaster architect. Anyway, I'm headed down to Mira Loma again tomorrow so, who knows? Maybe I'll putt a quick nine on my lunch break...
