JayarJackson

1.                  How do you know when someone has just parked or is leaving a parking spot?  We need a signal!!

Our cars are equipped with many features; lights, bells, and whistles that let other drivers on the road know what we’re planning to do.  Blinkers to make left or right turns and change lanes, hazard lights to show that something is mechanically wrong and that they aren’t purposefully driving 15 mph, and a quick bright flash of the headlights to tell someone to get the hell out of the way. 

So since parking spots are so scarce in Los Angeles along with the street parking signs that are created to confuse drivers into a ticket, seeing someone leaving a parking spot is like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.  Upon seeing someone approaching a car right in front of your apartment building with their key fob out, a burst of excitement fills your veins and you are hopeful that your nearly endless search for the evening is soon over.  So with a frantic U-turn that almost hits other parked cars and someone’s dog, you whip around to set up for the advantageous spot.  All those hopes and dreams are dashed when they give you a wave and a shake of their head saying, “I’m not leaving, just getting something out of the car that I forgot.”  After about 2 minutes of needlessly calling them names that your mother would be ashamed to hear you say, the search always continues. 

Why did I have to go through all that trouble running over my neighbor’s dog if that idiot wasn’t leaving?  And now that I’m on the other side of the street, another spot on the other side is opening up and I’m getting swooped on!  Damn!! 

All this frustration would be nullified if there were only a signal, a very strong spotlight, let’s say, that radiates from the roof of a car whose driver is approaching it with intentions of leaving.  When he unlocks those doors with plans of leaving, it’s like the grand opening of a club…you can see the spotlights from miles away, just navigate to the origin. 

2.                  Peacock’s colorful feathers are like a guy showing off his new BMW, they might help get you the girl, but the flashiness will get you in trouble!

The unmistakable characteristic of a peacock’s multicolored tail and feathers is apparently there to draw the attention of the choicest female birds for mating purposes.  Upon having this random and pointless conversation with a friend, I realized that the similarities between the animal world and human world are not as distant as I assume.  Sure, this bright and impressive tail gets the attention of the highly sought after gold digging female peahens that want to be seen with the high roller, but his gift is a curse as it also draws the attention of predators looking to have a poultry dinner. 

Similarly in the human world, every time Mr. Big Shot races his engine and shows off all the expensive TVs and electronics he has stashed in his new car on Sunset Blvd, it’s supposed to attract the attention of women, but needlessly catches the eye of criminals with intentions of taking that car, along with it’s expensive equipment off of Mr. Big Shot’s hands.  I guess you have to take the good with the bad. 

--JJJ

1.                  Young Black women think that driving is a race.

Everyone has heard of the stereotypes that come with certain races and genders regarding their driving skills.  The most common victims of our profiling are probably Asian women; they change lanes without looking, thinking they’re in the only car on the road.  Older Latinos tend to drive 55 mph in the fast lane on an open freeway.  Middle aged White women seem to have too many things to do other than press the accelerator when a stop light turns green.  Don’t worry; my beautiful Nubian sisters are high on the list of bad drivers as well.  As a matter of fact, their unmistakable characteristic of driving 65 mph in a 35 mph zone is runs rampant everyday. 

When you see a midsized, 4-door sedan swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane, simply to go around 2 people driving 10 mph over the speed limit, hold on tight to your steering wheel, don’t get macho and accelerate because you have 235 horsepower under the hood, just get the hell out of the way!  And when she hits you with the icy stare that says, “now I know you’re not flooring it,” just keep looking forward, this is one road fight you don’t want anything to do with.  Yes, that Nissan Altima, Chevy Malibu, Honda Accord, or Toyota Camry is being driven by a young Black woman with the heart of Jeff Gordon.  Give her that inside lane so she’ll stop drifting off of you. 

My experiences with three older sisters prove this point.  Yes, all of them are being exposed!  The oldest exceeds the freeway’s 65 mph speed limit on a U-turn onramp daily.  While riding with the 2nd oldest, she tailgated a poor older gentleman for ½ mile while yelling, “Why don’t you drive!”  When I noticed that the man with more life experience was already exceeding the 45 mph speed limit by 10, I had to tell her, “He’s already speeding!”  To that, she yelped, “oh,” snapped out of her uncontrollable NASCARness, and laid off the gas.  Last but not least, the youngest of my older sisters was pulled over for driving 110 mph while half of my family was in the car with her on a road trip to Arizona.  After the officer took her out of the car and explained to her that exceeding triple digits on the speedometer warrants an automatic arrest, she was allowed back into the driver’s seat with a simple ticket instead.  If it were me, I would have been in handcuffs with my mother asking, “Why are you taking my baby away?”  I was left assuming she simply told him, “C’mon, you know what’s up, I’m a 28 year old Black woman, I can’t help it!”

 

2.                  With so many retired numbers growing every year in pro sports, future players will soon have to wear numbers with 3 digits.

It even happens to players that are definite Hall of Famers of their sport, destined to be enshrined with their team’s jersey and number hanging in the rafters where they made history.  Once a number is retired for a sports team to honor the accomplishments of one player, no one else can ever wear the number again so that they won’t accidentally taint the illustrious memories it evokes.  No one can imagine another player for the Chicago Bulls wearing #23 now that Michael Jordan immortalized it.  Future Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal even had to change his original #32 to #34 when he joined the Los Angeles Lakers after Magic Johnson made so many memories donning the Lakers #32 jersey. 

So with so many numbers having to be avoided by young athletes making historic plays and careers in their different uniforms, I have to wonder when the numbers will run out.  Maybe when a few thousand years have passed, and numbers 00-99 are all used up, it will be normal to see Michael Jordan XL (40th) dunking while wearing #123. 


--JJJ

1.                  People waiting for the bus ALWAYS stand in the street!

  As all of you know, I live in LA, the city overflowing with people, especially on the streets.  The freeways, streets, and even residential areas are loaded with cars, so our environmentally conscious residents take the bus.  OK, these are the people without cars or else they’d contribute to the congestion the way I do.  Since most buses sit in the same traffic that all the cars do, people waiting for them get impatient and decide to lean into, step onto, and simply STAND in the street to see if their #20 bus is coming.  When several bus riders are there, it creates a competition to see who can balance on the edge of the curb the longest to check for the bus.  Since I am one of the “economical” drivers on the road that takes full advantage of the far right lane that many neglect, they run the risk of catching a chest full of my compact Ford. 

The last time I checked, buses are the biggest vehicles on the road.  Many of them are orange, red, or bright blue!  They are also the slowest moving vehicles on the road.  If these bus riders are abandoning the security of the bus stop canopy to lean back and forth in the street so that they won’t miss their bus coming, they don’t have to worry.  I don’t think anyone has ever said, “Damn, if I only stood in the street instead of at the huge bus stop, I would have seen that big, red, extra long bus with the accordion in the middle, before it passed me by at 15 mph.”

 

2.                  Those “Erasable” Pens NEVER worked!

  I remember back in 5th or 6th grade when right after the school banned slap bracelets from all us annoying kids that wouldn’t stop snapping them in class, we had to come up with a new gimmick that distracted us from math lessons.  Our answer came in the form of a pen that erased just like a pencil!!  All the rules from Mr. Moran about mathematicians writing in pencil only so that they can correct their mistakes went right out the window with those slap bracelets.  We were so clever, as soon as he caught the smart asses using a pen in MATH class, they’d simply show him the eraser, and rub those mistakes away!!  Once this phenomenon took hold, I noticed that my eraser didn’t seem to “erase” my mistakes.  In fact, it made my mistake a lighter colored one with a blue cloud surrounding it.  Since I was a neat freak when it came to my school work, I immediately threw that useless garbage erasable pen out and went back to my trusty mechanical pencil. 

To my surprise, seemingly everyone else continued to use those stupid pens!  I developed a complex and assumed I must be seeing something different than everyone else, so I kept my reality from everyone else with papers full of blue haze. 

Was I all alone in my observations?  When I returned my kick ball pitch asking for it to be “slow and smooth” was it already so?  Was the pizza the cafeteria served on Fridays actually nasty?  I got over it and eventually realized that deep down inside, you, me, and everyone else always knew that not only did those ink erasers not work, but the pens wrote spotty and lumpy.  Paper Mate got over on us!

 

--JJJ

1.                  Pointless car horns are the biggest catalysts for an instant bad mood.

I was in a pretty good mood yesterday. I was driving down Olympic Blvd heading toward work, it was 80 degrees outside, my windows were down, and one of my favorite songs was on the radio.  As many know, the far right lane in LA doubles as the parking meter lane.  During certain rare times of the day, that lane has no cars parked in it and everyone is afraid to enter it since it’s not the norm.  That’s where you’ll see my ass passing all traffic and actually making the often proposed time of “it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere in LA.” 

So as I neared my final turn, a big old half van, half Winnebago quickly seized one of the meters in my lane that I enjoy taking advantage of everyone in.  This was completely legal and within his right to do, so I snuck back into the lane next to me that had a full car’s length of space between the two vehicles.  Since we were all stopped at the red light, this maneuver was all done at 2 mph and since my right turn was only 10 feet ahead, this maneuver also only hindered my fellow driver from getting to the red light sooner.  He didn’t even have to look at my “USC Alumni” rear license plate frame for any longer than 10 seconds as I was dipping right back out to make my turn.  (Los Angeles is littered with cars representing USC with license plate frames…we’re kind of upfront and sometimes obnoxious about it.)

So you can imagine my surprise when he blasts his loud horn directly into my open window where my head was contently boppin’ to my jam!  In this instant, this mild mannered young Black man forgot that Pharrell was entering the bridge and went into a hand flinging, “shut the hell up” tirade wishing he’d blow that horn again.  Smiles turned to frowns, what would have been polite head nods from driver to driver turned to mean mugs and I dare yous, and the sunlight didn’t seem to shine so brightly anymore. 

Still, 10 seconds after his horn was needlessly utilized and I was immediately back on my route, the radio magically came back on in my ears, that fool was a lost memory, and the sub-zero temperature in the look I gave him warmed back up to 80.  It’s a beautiful day in LA!!

 

2.                  Why do baseball managers wear baseball uniforms during games?

My Dodgers are in the NLCS after sweeping the cursed Chicago Cubs with a serious goat impediment.  Anyway, I’ve been getting into watching baseball more closely for the past 3-4 years and I finally noticed the odd practice of the managers of the teams, also known as coaches in other sports, wear a full baseball uniform, complete with baseball pants and a jersey donning their name and number on the back.  I can’t tell so far if they wear cleats or not. 

What the hell do they need all that on for?  They look absolutely silly.  Most of these guys are pretty damn old and decrepit looking.  Sure, they used to play the game back in the day, but time has since tap danced all over their athletic builds, leaving the body of a dude that definitely eats large portions.  Players have their numbers and sometimes names on their uniforms for identification purposes.  When a foul or penalty is called on a player in basketball or football, the referees assess the foul to the number.  Why is Joe Torre wearing #6?? 

Can you imagine if rickety old Phil Jackson coached the Lakers in some basketball shorts and tank top jersey?  What if Charlie Weis coached Notre Dame from the sidelines with tight ass gold Capri-like pants, shoulder pads covered by a jersey, and a helmet? 

This doesn’t make any sense.  Tell these baseball guys to put on some khakis and a polo with team logos…please.  Leave the past in the past. 

---JJJ