Okay next topic for the day. As you know (probably) I travel for my job sometimes. I used to travel more frequently than I do now, and most times now I go to LA rather than anywhere else. This last week I was in Los Angeles.

This trip was a little longer than usual, I was there five days. We had our quarterly meeting on the Friday at a condo in Manhattan Beach. Rough. Seriously rough.

Most best about the trip, I got to see Kristen (who I notice has our picture up for her profile pic! Talk about a triple WOOT!) who I just love to pieces.

 

My best friend also got to take this trip too, which hasn’t happened in a while. We went to the Four F’s which is in Hermosa. I think it stands for Fat Face Fenner’s Fishack, but we entertained ourselves making up F words for the name. No, you don’t want to know.

I think that was the first time I’d ever seen Kristen get slightly snippy; there were some dudes sitting behind us that just totally bulled into our conversation and then started making dumb comments (what else is new) and then kept asking what they’d said when we tried to turn back to our friends. Pffft.

Anyway so when I got to LA, I went to go get the car and they didn’t have any of the standard cars with the navigation. Call me a sissy but I don’t yet know LA well enough to not have some sort of guidance system, and I’m no good at maps.

So they don’t have any standard cars left so I ask about their “Fun Collection” cars to see how much more they are a day. I’m thinking a Jeep Wrangler would be pretty damn cool, since you guys know how much I dig those things. I’m thinking I’d pay the extra per day.

Turns out, the Fun cars are $15 extra a day, plus $10 for the navigation system. The guy says, however, that he will not charge me for the navigation system, which means I can get a Fun car with navigation for only $5 more than I would have paid for a standard car with navigation. Yeah, it’s the company’s money, but I like to save money where I can. Aaaaaand, we all know how I love a deal.

So I tell the guy that would be great. He tells me he’s got a Mercedes. Now, I’m not so much into the luxury cars, plus I’m thinking that it’s one of those little bitty ones probably on its last legs, and I ask hopefully if he’s got any Wranglers. He gives me a patented “are you fucking crazy? I just offered you a Mercedes” look and explains that Wranglers don’t HAVE navigation systems. I guess people that drive Wranglers just innately know where they’re going. People who drive Mercedes(es?) must need the extra help. So I say okay.

Um, hi.

Yeah.

Okay so if you’ve never driven a Mercedes before (like me) I will explain that this model at least, doesn’t have like a metal key. It’s got a remote door locker thing and a square bit on the end that you stick into the square bit in the ignition. I won’t explain how long it took me to figure that out. Or how long it took me to figure out how to adjust the seats. We’ll just say that thirty minutes later, I finally was driving out of the rental car lot.

Oh. My. God. I think luxury cars aren’t quite as pretentious as I thought. Well, actually, they are pretentious. It just felt way better being pretentious than I thought it would. I kept expecting to have people boo at me for not belonging in the car. All went well though because it was frickin’ lovely. And it had a sunroof. No heated seats though, I was kinda surprised over that, but maybe it’s just that I couldn’t figure out how to operate it. Wouldn’t be surprised.

So the best part of the whole Mercedes thing, we’re driving down Manhattan Beach Blvd and I swear to god, a curb jumped out of nowhere and I curbed the rim. I am not even joking. I’m driving a 2007 Mercedes E350 and I curbed the fucking rim. Luckily the damage was barely noticeable, but jeezus. I mean, really.

Just goes to show I should be driving a Jeep instead. Who’s with me?!?!

The last day of the trip, we had our team quarterly meeting at the Manhattan Beach condo:

That’s the view. I didn’t take any of the inside of the condo, because, let’s face it, I was driving a Mercedes and had to look like this was every-day goings-on for me.

Nobody was fooled, I don’t think.

Ahhhhh.

So then after that we drove the Mercedes to Target (because where ELSE would you go in a Mercedes), did a little shopping, and headed to the airport. Yet another successful LA trip. Next time I’m getting the Jeep, with or without a navigation system.