Nobody Walks in L.A. - Part 2

So, now you would get on the road and be driving around 10 mph hoping that your car would not get hit by a snow ball from some little piece of shit who was causing trouble. If they did hit you, you always had to worry about ending up skidding. I must admit, I did throw snowballs at cars occasionally when I was younger. So I guess I was a piece of shit. However, in my defense, I would only throw them at cars of people who underpaid me for shoveling their driveway. I would be out in the freezing cold shoveling away, so much physical work that I almost had a heart attack. (And I was eight. It was hard labor.) I would be working away, harder than a sweat shop employee, for hours on end and some bitch would give me two dollars! Two fucking dollars! Thanks for nothing! Just wait until your AMC Pacer rolls down my street!

By the way, I have a problem about people always saying how sweat shop employees have it so tough. I figure it this way. These kids are 5, 6 or 7 years old. So let’s say they make fifty cents an hour and work a fourteen hour day. That is seven dollars a day, multiply that by thirty days in a month and it comes out to over two hundred a month and over two thousand a month. That is pretty good fucking money for a First Grader. Hell, I didn’t make shit off my paper route, and these kids are making bank. (Oh, and their cost of living is much lower.)

Now when it comes to skidding, I personally don't remember whether you are supposed to go with the skid or against it, but it didn't really matter. What I do remember is this. Your mind went completely blank to those facts and all that crap you learned in Driver’s Education when it would happen.

I always wanted to go to a Driving School when I was older and had my license. I would walk up to the Instructor and I’d be wearing a Hawaiian Shirt and some checked pants and instead of glasses, I would be wearing those Tanning Booth bright plastic eye shades. I would drool when I would speak to him and tell him I had the “need for speed.” Then when we started driving I would light up a cigarette, and when he told me to put my hands in the 9 o’clock and 3 o’ clock position, I would say to him, “I don’t know how to tell time, so you can go fuck yourself!” That would be fun to me, but I have been construed as a little odd at times.

Anyway, when you were losing control of your car, all you thought was, "Holy shit! I am fucking skidding and am going to run into a tree!" But you never did. You may have soiled your pants, but would never crash your car into a Douglass Fir on the side of the road. We pulled through it and still got to work on time.

Hell, think about when there would be a huge snow storm. Most people wouldn’t be working and restaurants and supermarkets would be closed. So you would find your friend who had an SUV and everyone would pile into it and would hit the only bar that was open in town. You would get there and the place would be fucking packed! It seemed like everyone else has the same idea. And the best part of it? You knew that no one would get pulled over for drinking and driving because everyone driving home was swerving. (And could tell the cop it was from the conditions.)

To be continued...