Shit Happens in USA - Los Angeles Part 2

The following morning, day two, we went down stairs in the lobby for a coffee and the kids ordered an iced coffee.  They expected a thick and luxurious iced coffee milk drink served with whipped cream & powdered chocolate…like you get in Australia.  They were served weak drip filter coffee with ice cubes floating in it. What the actual fuck?  We were all laughing so hard we were almost crying.  As expected, it was shit.  We went back to Killer Café (the 24 hour diner from our first night) and ordered breakfast.  Boy Wonder ordered the French toast, which was massive and the fat fluffy pancakes tasted like a vanilla dessert and he struggled to eat or even enjoy it (whaaaaat?  Go see a damn doctor about that shit, sunshine).  Miss Marvellous ordered an omelette with a hash brown on the side.   She was expecting a thin and crispy hash brown like the frozen kind we have in Australia; she was served something that was the size of half a loaf cake and although it was very tasty, it was  HUGE.  I ordered poached eggs and they threw some sausage, a bowl of fruit and an extra two slices of toast I didn’t want for good measure.  Bloody hell!  We were struggling to get used to the food in LA.

After breakfast, we headed off to Hollywood in an Uber.  All the way there, The Captain was pumping the driver for information.  How much does he makes on average?  How many hours does he work?  Is this his car?  Is this his only job? We had heard all of this before.  We got to Hollywood and walked up the strip, taking photos of the famous stars in the pavement on both sides of the road.  On the opposite side on the walk, there were street performers and a cluster of people taking photos of Ryan Reynolds’ star.  We later found out that he only got his star the day before we got there, so that was cool.  The kids and I started picking shit through the performers in costume.  We saw a fat spider man, a very paunch and balding Dead Pool and a Batman who looked to be erring on the wrong side of 70.  Retire your arse, Grandpa!  Boy Wonder whispered, “These guys need to lay off the burgers”, in my ear.  I had to stifle my guffaw.  A tall, lithe Dead Pool wandered past with very fine arse and impressed Miss Marvellous and me; elicited an eye roll from Boy Wonder. 

A tall street performer with gold teeth targeted Miss Marvellous and asked her if she wanted to hold his snake (no alarm necessary, a very large and very real snake was looped around his neck; a smaller one around his hand).  Miss Marvellous advised that she had no money (we had wandered away and she couldn’t hail us and had no money of her own with her).  She told him she was with her parents so she couldn’t pay him and he said, “That’s okay, more people might come over if they see you with a snake around you neck.”  I wonder if it was absolutely necessary to have his turgid trouser python pressed up against her as he transferred the snake and had Miss Marvellous blushing.  Nothing is free in LA. 

There was a large section of path with celebrity hand prints and famous names and quotes that I really wanted to see but it was barricaded and closed to the public because some rich arsehole leaking $100 bills out of his arse was holding a big function so we were not allowed to get close to take photos.  That pissed me off because I wanted to take pictures of that shit.  Michael Jackson’s hand print was in there.  Entitled arsehole!

We walked past a Hooters bar and all joked that we would go inside later for a drink.  Boy Wonder got excited at the prospect.  After that, we went our separate ways for a spell because we wanted to look at different things, deciding to meet an hour later.  Miss Marvellous and I did some shopping.  We spied a Saphora makeup store and made my niece very happy by purchasing makeup pallets she asked us to buy for her as they’re not available in Australia.  Miss Marvellous was like a kid in a candy store while I was incredulous at the astounding price of make up. Miss Marvellous advised that I have no idea about makeup, a statement that was correct, so I fucked off and killed time texting my niece.  Outside of the makeup utopia, I stumbled upon a shoe store and bought some boots that had me skipping for the rest of the afternoon. Boy Wonder scored some jeans at American Eagle that cost an arm and a leg but looked great on him.  He wore these jeans through most of the trip so it was definitely money well spent. 

Miss Marvellous added to her snow globe collection because she had developed an obsession.  We walked past the Hooters again and Boy Wonder asked The Captain if we could go in.  I was dreading this because I do not need to see my 15 year old son ogling topless waitresses, possibly with a menu covering his crotch, sharing titty scores with his father.  This kind of male bonding does not need to occur with mother in the room.  The Captain stated that he had already been inside and they all had tiny tits so he walked back out.  Boy Wonder nodded at his father and said ‘fair enough’ and the topic was dropped.  I was suddenly grateful for small breasted women but horrified at The Captain's judgement.  We started looking for an Uber to take us back to the hotel.   All through the trip, The Captain was asking the same questions of the driver and I couldn’t stop my eye roll.

When we finally got back, we dumped our purchases, opened the sliding door to cool down the hot box, and walked across the road to a group of shops where we dined at a Thai restaurant.  This is one of the best meals I ate in the US, although the rest of the team thought it was just okay.  I think it might have been poor choices on their part and not the quality of the food but I didn’t say anything because my stomach was not protesting and I was almost purring like a sated cat.  We paid the bill and gave them a nice tip before we realised that they had forgotten to charge us for our drinks (two beers, a glass of wine and a couple of soft drinks each for the kids) so we high tailed it across the road to our hotel and snickered that we’re rebels because we did a runner on the drinks bill.  Woot, woot, a win for us!  Someone’s arse was going to get nailed to a wall over the road.

We went to the Killer Café again, ignoring Boy Wonder’s protests.  The kids had a milkshake that restored my son’s faith in the café and The Captain and I had a nice coffee to set us up for the day.  As we headed off to Universal Studios in an Uber. The Captain was pumping the Uber driver for information again, the same questions.  This was starting to get annoying.  When we finally arrived at Universal Studios, I leaned in to Boy Wonder and joked that Dad keeps repeating the same boring conversation every time we take an Uber ride.  Boy Wonder glared at me and said “really?” I shrugged my shoulders.  What? He said, in a really bad imitation of a female voice, “we leave for Honolulu at 7.30 at night and arrive at 8.30am on the same day…like we got into a DeLorean and went back to the future.”  I vaguely remember repeating that a few times but I didn’t think he had picked up on it.  Then Miss Marvellous joins in, “…and we leave to go home on the 7^th of January and arrive home on the 9^th.  We don’t even get to see the 8^th…the 8^th doesn’t exist for us.”  The two traitorous bastards then high fived each other, like they’ve got me all figured out.  Fuck off, I’m not predictable!

So we made our way through Universal Studios and after going through airport security, and almost getting my arsehole probed because I forgot to take my fucking bangles off, we headed for Harry Potter World.  We were all beside ourselves with excitement for Harry Potter World except The Captain.  The Captain is not a Harry Potter fan. He hasn’t read the books and he hasn’t watched the movies so a look of dread passed over his face.  Stiff shit mate, three against one, we’ll meet you back here later, we three were mad for it.  Miss Marvellous went nuts buying books and stitch on patches and was disappointed that there were no snow globes.  Both kids tried Butter beer at Hogsmead and loved it, but I wasn’t a fan (it tasted like fizzy butterscotch but had a bitter saccharine aftertaste).  We looked in Zonko’s and the kids queued up for a roller coaster ride that cost them forty minutes of queuing time for a 2 minute ride that they reported was not worth the wait whilst The Captain and I sat bored out of our brains on a park bench checking Facebook, awaiting their return.  I was hoping this shit ride was not a precursor for all rides here because next we queued for an hour for ‘The Ride.” 

The Captain was not impressed by this wait, he doesn’t do queues and long waits well, but he was the epitome of patience and even agreed that it was really well done because as we turned each bend as the queue snaked around twists and turns, shuffling along at the pace of a sloth, there was something amazing around every corner.  J.K. Rawlings actually worked with the design team to ensure that all of the details, like the talking portraits, the car hanging out of the Whomping Willow tree and layout of the rooms were true to the books.  We were amazed and this was not a painful hour of queuing.  After we made it inside the mountain, we stowed our shit in lockers because we were advised that the ride was jerky (shit, really?...better not be a fucking rollercoaster) and I started to worry about the ride itself.  I’m not a fan of rides.  I was a fan in my youth but I’m over that shit now and I’m not an admirer of putting myself though heart-attack inducing terror for a thrill.  I’m too old for that crap.  Within minutes (well, a few of them) of getting back in to the queue, we were at the front of the line and our 4 seat carriage arrived.  We were strapped in and then I started to seriously shit myself.  I clung to the bar with a death grip as we zoomed along.  We were surrounded by screens that simulated the ride.  Flying over bridges and through a Quiddich match, every time we climbed or dipped, my body reacted like I was actually flying; my heart pounding in panic as my guts dropped and my bum nipped but I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.  Holy crap, it was amazing!  It was the single most amazing ride I have ever been on.  Needless to say, when we finally disembarked, I was a little shaky and felt fatigued down my left side because I’d clung to the bar like death was a real possibility, and I had a tension headache building.

After that, we queued for an hour for The Captain’s most coveted thing to do at Universal Studios; a bus tour through the sets.  They showed us how they make floods and lightening occur on movie sets, we went into a simulated ride with Jurassic Park and King Kong and that was absolutely amazing (it was 4D so we got sprayed with water and jerked about too).  The second simulated ride was a Fast and Furious one and although it was great, it didn’t feel as real as the first one.  We saw the sets from Desperate Housewives, and many series that we had grown used to on our TV sets.    Of course Jaws was one of the attractions on this bus ride and the mechanical beast burst from the water for a thrill that didn’t quite translate because it was as predictable as fuck.  The Captain advised that it hadn’t changed since he was last on this tour in 1988.

Then I got roped into going on the Jurassic Park ride and of course it was a fucking rollercoaster and I nearly shit myself.  I yowled and scrunched my eyes shut because I can’t do this shit anymore.  Boy Wonder was apologising profusely beside me because he knows how I feel about rollercoaster rides and it was he who convinced me to go on it.  At least I didn’t scream “Mummy!” in terror this time.  Unfortunately, it was after 4.30pm and the sun had set and it was starting to get cold. The Captain got absolutely drenched all down one side of him when we came down the last part of the ride through water.  I disembarked on shaky legs and vowed that the Jurassic Ride was the last one for me.  The kids then went on  the Transformers ride, which Boy Wonder reported was really shit and not worth and the long wait in the queue.  He crapped himself on The Mummy Rollercoaster ride whilst The Captain and I sipped hot chocolates and waited in comfort.  We bought the kids a hot chocolate when they disembarked to warm them up then ordered our Uber and returned to the hotel.  That night we went across the road from The Terrace shit-pit to a small restaurant which offered pizza on pita bread.  This was crispy and flavoursome and finally we all enjoyed a nice meal in LA, although The Captain was a little disappointed in his as it lacked ‘flavour’ (he has a very fussy palate…he needs to stop expecting the world on a plate in a place where they deep fry mars bars).  The kids reminded him of the place across the road that served shit on toast and called it pizza, so he refrained from further grumbling.

The next day we wandered around Marina del Rey and Venice Beach then we made another trip to Santa Monica, this one in the evening so Miss Marvellous could get her SLR out and photograph the Santa Monica Pier all lit up at night.  She produced some gorgeous photography.    Walking back to the hotel was a bitch because there were no fucking toilets and every restaurant had a sign stating that the restrooms were for patrons only.  Fuck...my eyeballs were swimming because I was so full of pee and I was really getting stressed that I would not make it back without embarrassing myself in front of my family and the community at large. Miss Marvellous could not take my moaning a moment longer, so she marched into a restaurant, fluttered her eyelashes at a waiter and asked where the restroom were located.  The waiter was indeed distracted by those eyelashes and concentrating on her pretty face and forgot the rules, pointing behind himself to the facilities.  She cheerily replied “Great!  My mother and I really need to go.”  Embarrassingly, she grabbed my hand and dragged me past him as he started looking around guiltily, his face morphing into acknowledging panic that he’d just broken the rules.  I was so grateful to her I could have cried, but I feared my tears would smell like urea, so full of piss was I, so instead I followed meekly behind her like I was a little soft in the head.  You’d think that after holding it all in for that length of time, it would burst forth and sound like a racehorse.  Instead, my muscles would not relax so it trickled out of me for an eternity like it really did have to make its way down from my eye sockets.    That was the longest time with a full bladder I had ever endured.  That was soon going to be trumped daily.

The next day Captain Fantastic thought it would be a grand idea to catch the bus to UCLA and then walk to Beverley Hills.  I looked at the sky and suggested it might rain, but The Captain confidently informed me “it never rains in California.”  Well, he knows fuck all because it started to rain on us within minutes of this false statement.  We walked for a stupid amount of time and we were getting tired and grumpy…and by we I mean me, so the drizzle didn't add joy to the mix.  We stopped at Starbucks for a restorative coffee and a pee (because toilets are as rare as fucking hens teeth and you pop into any one you come across and squeeze out every little drop you can) and I saw in the mirror above the hand basin that the drizzle had made my hair, which was in a tight ponytail, frizz like an agitated orang-utan.  I looked ridiculous.  I hoped we wouldn’t see someone really famous because I don’t want to be remembered for all of the wrong reasons.

After we finally made it to Beverley Hills, the rain had eased somewhat and we looked through the shops that only the mega rich can afford, all wet and unkempt as we were.  Our appearance screamed “tourist” like a neon sign flashed above us.  Some stores had mega rich children’s clothes for sale in them too…like junior requires a three piece suite from Petit Bateau!  Please! We took photos because we’re poor arsed bogans and imagined a life where extravagant clothing was an everyday thing. 

We spied a Bugatti Veyron, a rare site in any city, and took photos of the exceptional gem parked in the street.  Then we walked the streets where the rich and famous live before finally catching a bus back to the hotel.  The bus driver gave us a free ride (probably because we looked bedraggled and exhausted and my hair was a frizzy halo surrounding my pinched face - desperation speaks to people).  He gave both of the kids a Mexican sweet which was possibly the shitiest tasting thing they have ever put in their mouths.  Miss Marvellous’ candy tasted normal at first but it’s centre was volcanic chilli heat which made her sweat a little before she spat the offending piece of crap out.  Boy Wonder’s was soft and after a nibble, his horrified face said it all.  I took the sweet from him and popped it in my mouth, because I’m stupid, and then promptly spat it back out.  I read the wrapper, it was pureed fig.  What fucking kid would find that shit yummy?  It tasted like how I imagine re-hydrated dog shit would taste.  Thanks for the free ride, generous bus driver dude, but put your candy in a bazooka and fire it at the moon.  The taste lingered in my mouth for a very long time, making my face a mask of disgust that I could not hide.  Botox required!

That evening, we dined at an alternative restaurant that was just fucking weird.  The Captain’s meal was the best, but it came with a giant section of bleached white bone on the side and he had to dig out the bone marrow and spread it on the slow cooked beef cheek (this alone made my stomach roil, I don’t eat marrow, it’s up there with offal, goat testicles, snail arseholes and tiger penis…shudder).  The actual beef cheek was very tasty but I’m not interested in the bone guts.  Miss Marvellous ordered tasty lamb dumplings but it was swimming in what tasted like a horse piss & goat sweat reduction – gross.  I ordered pumpkin ravioli but I think his rolling pin must have been broken because it was dense and chewy and way too thick…and orange AF!  It warranted a vote of mediocrity from me.  Boy Wonder went the safe option; he ordered spaghetti and meatballs.  That waiter queried, as he took his order “you do know there is no pasta in this dish.”  What?...but it’s spaghetti and meatballs.  He advised that it was vegetables and meatballs so we were imagining veggies that had been spiral cut to look like pasta and we all got a little excited about the prospect of some vegetables in the land of deep fried shit-on-a-plate.  What a load of crap, the tasty meatballs turned up on a pile of mashed celeriac.  Why?  If you want to be creative, give it another name like meatballs on mound of mashed shite.  Stop being artsy and hipster and just serve real food, please.  I was not impressed by this fuckwittery!

The next day we returned to LAX airport at the ungodly hour of 5:30am.  This was the first flight we were on that differed from the Captain.  The Captain’s flight was departing at 7:30am, ours at 8:00am.  We were half dead because it was just too frigging early to be out and about.  The Captain paid the Uber driver and I waited for him to give us our passports.  I had to ask for them because he must have still been asleep inside his head.  His face completely drained of colour; a look of pure horror crossed his face.  “Shit, I’ve left the passports and the money in the hotel safe.”  Holy fuck, you did what now?  How did you manage that, Einstein?  He left $7,000 in cash and all of our passports there.  My face was now a twin to his mask of horror as I realised the extent of the fuck-up.  I refrained from reprimanding him because he was hating on himself already for being a dolt.  This was very uncharacteristic of Captain Fantastic.  He bolted out the door to catch the driver before he departed.  He stated that he had left the passports in the hotel safe and before any of us could say anything, Boy Wonder said “I’ll go” and dived in the cab with the driver.  The Captain and I were doing guppy things with our mouths as the Uber departed with our son inside.  Seconds later, I realised what the fuck had just happened.  My 15 year old son had climbed into a car with a driver and disappeared into the darkness.  We didn’t know the driver, we didn’t know anything about him.  Fuck!  I started panic thinking stupid shit like if he sees our boy with all the money he might just knock him on the head and throw him in a river.  I’ve seen too many episodes of Criminal Minds.  All sorts of scenarios started popping into my head and I thought I was going to have a stroke.  I was seriously shitting myself when The Captain announced, “I gotta go or I’ll miss my flight, here’s a hundred for the driver, let me know how he goes” and he was gone.  Aaarrrggghhhh!  My face was the horror emoji again and I immediately started texting my son demands “text me the driver’s name and ID number please and whatever you do, don’t mention the money… just the passports.”  He responded with a “yep” and then the info I had asked for.  I was trying to calm the fuck down but was not succeeding.  The Captain was bombarding me with texts asking if I’d heard from Boy Wonder.  I got a text from my boy, “waiting for security to take me to the room.”  Oh Jesus, it dawned on me that he had no fucking ID on him…this was one giant cluster fuck!  I calmed myself with the knowledge that he had made it there okay.  I felt the need to assume he was slightly touched in the head and sent him a text, “Mate, put the cash where the driver can’t see it, like down your pants or something, and grab the passports.”  He didn’t give me shit for this; he knew I was freaking out. 

Moments later, I received a text.  “Items acquired, on my way back.”  Miss Marvellous laughed at the Secret Squirrel shit her brother was texting me and I think I saw something akin to pride in her expression.  The Captain suddenly appeared beside me “I can’t go without my passport.”  I thought to myself, ‘this just keeps getting better and better’. I watched the Uber pull up with my son in it and The Captain ran outside pay the guy.   I hugged my boy with a spine cracking death grip that made him squeak; I had tears of relief filling my eyes.  He looked pretty chuffed with himself for saving the day.  His father patted his back, extracted his passport and ran back up the stairs to catch his flight. 

The terror of the incident had woken me and I just want to get on the flight and get the hell out of LA!  We made our way with our luggage to the Qantas terminal, only to be advised we had a 4 hour delay ahead of us.  Say what now fuck face?  He was apologetic and gave us each a $20 voucher to go get something to eat.  We had a cooked breakfast which consisted of deep fried everything on a sweet bun, but I ate it anyway before taking an acid prevention pill and I texted The Captain the bad news.   

On the flight, we asked the steward if Miss Marvellous could have an alcoholic drink because she’s Australian and 18 and allowed to drink at home.  I was expecting to be told no because we were in American airspace.  The steward was affronted by my suggestion that this might be the case, “Of course you can, this is an Australian airline, let me get you some wine right away, sweetie.”   That made for a relaxing trip for us.  The flight was packed with Australians, all travelling to New York and we wondered who the fucker was that had our flight so delayed that it screwed up this leg of our trip.  When we finally arrived at JFK airport, The Captain had been waiting there for 6 hours for us with nowhere to go because there IS nowhere he could go with his luggage in tow.  We still couldn’t talk to him because we were waiting for our luggage.

We were busting to go to the loo again but could not leave the baggage areas as we would not be allowed back in (what a stupid rule – they should hand out adult diapers on the flight so people can still function after they land).  Miss Marvellous had a pained expression the entire wait for the bags, wishing, I suspect, she had some of those diapers.  It took an eon for our bags to arrive.  We finally got out of there to find a highly tolerant Captain waiting for us.  We hailed a cab to take us to Harlem…that in itself was a scary introduction to New York.

Doona