Back in L.A we are loving the fact that we can get around in short sleeves rather than looking like the Michelin Mans identical twin. We have picked up another rental car (which is a totally awesome Chevrolet) and are enjoying driving along the now familiar freeways. In fact, I have barely the faintest recollection of arriving here only one short month ago where driving on the opposite side of the road scared the living daylights out of me. Heck we have even got used to the smog! I still don’t like the scary palms though. Or the food. Or the coffee.
The warmer autumn (whoops….fall) day made for pleasant driving as we sought out Wal-Mart (YAY!) at Crenshaw again. I was absolutely stoked to be there! Yes….my name is Donna….and I am a Wal-Mart bogan! Unfortunately as they have just had the “Black Friday” sales (these are the sales the next day after Thanksgiving) a lot of the items that the Bear and I drooled over were sold out. *sob* I also lucked out on trying to find “S’mores Bars” for Alyx. We had gone into Hersheys when we were in New York and they had told us that they only have them in summer time (how pathetically dumb is that?) but I had hoped that there might be some loitering in the aisles of a poor, suburban Los Angeles Wal-Mart. *sigh* Nope!
The Bear and I were looking for somewhere to have lunch. At the shopping centre where Wal-Mart was, there was a restaurant that was advertising $8 for an all you can eat buffet! Sold! The restaurant looked clean enough although we couldn’t see the food from the entry. For $8 we figured “who cares!”. We went in and were served by a cute little Chinese girl who didn’t understand a word that we said…and barely spoke a word of English.....however smiled brightly anyway….and bowed as she spoke. The Bear asked whether they had rest rooms (I was absolutely busting) however the cute China doll thought he asked if they had “regular coke”. Repeating the question, stupidly gave us the same answer. *insert puzzled look here* I figured it was easier for me to go in search of a loo. Baaaaaaad mistake.
I found the toilets at the opposite end of the restaurant. I really should have reconsidered where I was looking but little did I know that my need for a wee would affect my whole day, if not lifetime. If only I had have searched out in the main mall and not in the restaurant. *sigh* American toilets definitely had it in for me.
As I pushed open the door I immediately saw a lady in there washing her hands. That was the first thing I saw. The second thing I saw, (and I would SERIOUSLY like to seek out a counsellor who might be able to explain why this was the SECOND thing that I saw) was raw sewage lapping gently in the non-existent breeze. In the other words, the woman who was washing her hands, was toe deep in shit which was overflowing from one of the cubicles. The floor was covered in it and it was still overflowing from the toilet bowl. It was clear that this was not a “new” issue due to the dried toilet paper that was stuck to the walls and I found myself wondering how on earth this freak of a woman managing to utilise the facility (do you like how politely I worded that?) let alone how she was managing to stand in it. Suck me sideways and holy mother of God - I dead set started peddling on air not dissimilar to that of the road runner and my teeth flew out the back of my head. I bolted back out to the table, to find that the Bear had already visited the buffet and was eating his first plate of food. The look on my face could only be matched by the churning of my stomach and the urgency of my bladder.
I raced outside (well…..raced as much as a cross legged penguin could do) and up the concourse of the mall to locate the centre toilets. For the record, they were automatically flushing toilets (I am awake to them!) and were clean! When I went back to the restaurant I told the Bear I wasn’t really hungry due to yet another toilet incident, however I didn’t tell him what I had seen as it would have put him off his food. I went to the buffet bar and looked hesitantly. If the plumbing had a regular issue (as was indicated by the dried toilet paper) then who the hell knows what goes into their cooking! I selected a couple of items of food that I could identify yet was still unable to really eat. I simply didn’t trust the place after that!
The afternoon was spent searching for “Lincoln Park”. Alyx requested that we seek out the park that “Linkin Park” named themselves after. (Trivia: they changed the spelling to secure an internet domain) We had tried looking for it the first stint in L.A however we could not find it. Fortunately Google came to the rescue and we found that it did exist. Unfortunately it was not named “Lincoln Park” – just nicknamed that as it was on Lincoln Boulevard. It was actually named “Christine Emerson Reed Park”. Yep….I see the relationship between the two. Not! Unfortunately there was nowhere to pull over near the park so that I could take a photo for Alyx….so we did the block a few times with me snapping away as we passed. We hoped that at least one photo would turn out, and also hoped that the patrons in the park would not call the police reporting that a strange, overweight dwarf was taking random photos out of a car window, every three to five minutes!
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