he needed to get to a body shop on La Cienega

it was an Uber Select ride, so i was stoked

when i put the address into Waze it told me to take the 101

but i thought, and i told him, shouldn’t we be taking the 10?

he said, if Waze says the 101 lets do it.

i thought maybe because of the rain and the sink holes and craziness maybe Waze knew something i didnt know.

are you ok, i asked, when he told me about the body shop?

he said, “funny story, my brother is in from out of town and he was gonna rent a car for a few days, i said take my Porsche, it’s a classic but i never use it.

“so he takes it and as he is about two blocks home he looks over and sees this stunning woman walking down the street and rear ends the car in front of him.”

i said, i did the same thing when i first moved here from Chicago. the women here are something to get accustomed to. he was all, no kidding.

we get to where Waze tells us and the guy goes, no, this isn’t it. im like, it’s not? he goes, no its closer to Olympic (we were about 5 miles from Olympic.) i say, my man, I’ll take you wherever you want.

so we keep going and we’re looking at the sky and its beautiful and he says, when i moved here 20 years ago the air was so terrible. regulations really can make a difference: smog checks, emission standards, fancy gas.

i said you really dont hear smog jokes about LA any more.

he was all, no you do not.

and then we were there.

$40 on the nose.