Nate Beaty's Brainfag

Road rage! For real!

posted in Home Jabber on July 20, 2007

Thirty-two years old as of Sunday. In a few years I'll have lived the same number of years independently as when I did with my family. That's an odd thought. Not sure if I'm surprised I'm so close or that it didn't pass long ago. In other words, I'm not sure if I feel old or not. I'd have to say no.

To celebrate, Soon Bok and I headed south to Mexico since it's such a short drive away. Or so we thought. It was close, but it took us six hours to get to our destination, thanks to insane, constant, maddening, ridiculous, smog-hazy LA traffic just about the whole way down to the border. Once in Mexico we were sped along the well-maintained Baja thoroughfare, the 1D, through $9 of toll roads to Ensenada.

We spent a few days in Ensenada, drinking ginormous margaritas, buying cheap mexican trinkets, scouting out the best fish tacos, enjoying the scenery from our ghetto "HotelInn" room, avoiding dumb jocko americans, playing pool and air hockey, and finally hitting a sleazy little strip joint for my birthday. Where we were bought a rose by a couple rowdy Mexican doodz who said it was "from Mexico" and that they "weren't hitting on" Soon Bok. Ha! Good times.

For our last night in Baja, we drove up to Rosarito and stayed on the beach in a swank lil' Mexican-constructed hotel, which had recently been extra pimped out, but sported a "jacuzzi" that was about 60 degrees. Quite the strange sensation to slip into a bubbling jacuzzi that's colder than body temperature. We crisped ourselves on the beach, ate more delicious tacos, and laid around and watched boobtube. Deluxe.

The next day we headed back to the states around noon, and after getting a bit lost in Tijuana, we found ourselves at a border line 8 miles east. This was by far the worst part of the trip as we spent almost three hours inching along, baking in our AC-less car, handing out our remaining pesos to vendors, jugglers, car-wipers, panhandlers and children that made their living in the long lines of exhaust-pumping cars. Plus I had to piss the entire time. Not. Fun. After finally reaching the grumpy-ass border patrolman who grunted at my greeting and swiped our passports, we made our way through a strange maze of giant concrete blocks obviously meant to slow down anyone who might attempt to speed through the gates.

The 8 mile drive west back to I-5 was also bumper-to-bumper, and at one point I caught a giant truck bump up against a little white car as it attempted to switch lanes. The car sped up and I could see some heated words being exchanged. All I could hear was "fuck you! I asked if I could get over!" from the truck. The car obviously wanted him to pull over to exchange insurance info, but the truck just kept going, ignoring him. The car pulled back behind the truck, and the driver leaned over to his glove compartment as he inched along beside us. The car then whipped into the vacant lane to the right and the driver leaned out the window, pulled out a gun, and shot three times the tires of the truck! POP! POP! POP! Holy shit! Road rage! For real! The truck jerked, and then floored it as they both sped in the vacant lane that turned off south onto Highway 8. The whole thing happened so fast, Soon Bok missed the shooting. At least the guy went for his tires and not the driver, and it didn't even seem to affect the truck. I can only wonder how that ended.

The drive back to LA was pretty uneventful besides the car shooting, and moved much quicker than the drive down. But we weren't too excited to get back. LA still doesn't feel like home and I have serious doubt it ever will.