A Meltdown on the 101

Have had my 'real' job interview pushed back until December which is great as it gives me more time to fret about my lack of credentials, tenuous legal status and general inadequacies. This also gives me more time to nanny for two wonderfully precocious boys out in The Valley. I fucking hate The Valley and I fucking hate the 101 freeway, which gets me there. There is something about gridlock on the Cahuenga Pass that is akin to pure evil. So Wednesday I'm heading north on the 101, on my way to pick the boys up from school (lets call them Bill and Bob) in Sherman Oaks.

I get on at Western and make it to Highland, (less than 3 miles) it takes me 40 minutes. I keep a hawk like eye on my temperature gauge, which starts to flirt with the red part of hot. Obviously I do not drive a Lexus or a Mercedes, my car is old, as in 1988 old. But I really do not need this. I look ahead at all four lanes of traffic stopped dead in their tracks. I listen to Left, Right and Center on NPR. Arianna Huffington's pompous voice is grating on my nerves more than usual. I turn off the radio and watch as the temperature gauge remains steadily in the red and sweat begins to drip down my brow. I call Bill and Bob's school.

"I am Bill and Bobs nanny and I'm going to be late," I blurt out to the first person that picks up. Maybe it’s my Australian accent or maybe I haven't given enough information. Either way I am not understood. I get put on hold for what seems like eternity. Finally someone picks up again. This time they are speaking to me in Spanish. I do not understand Spanish.

"I speak English, no hablo espanol," which I repeat about fifteen times until they get it. I relay the message again, this time I'm understood. At this point the traffic begins to crawl and my temperature gauge takes a slight reprieve. An hour and a half after I left my apartment I make it to Bill and Bob’s school.

After the long wait, Bill and Bob are at each other’s throats and demanding something to eat. To shut them up, I make a hasty illegal turn into Jack and the Box and charge two chocolate shakes to my credit card. Apart from the slurping, I have relative peace and quiet and make it back onto the 101.

I think that maybe I can keep the car cool by sheer will and we really don't have that far to travel. This technique works for about six minutes, after which point the temperature gauge breaches the red. Very quickly black smoke billows from the engine, an acrid smell wafts through the vents and in the middle lane of the freeway my car promptly gives up the ghost. Bill and Bob are remarkably quiet as two Mexican's jump out of the pick up next to me and roll my piece of scrap metal to the shoulder. I thank the Mexican's, reassuring them that I would be fine... AAA = peace of mind.

With a 40-minute wait for a tow truck, it is inevitable that at least one of the boys will need to pee. I don't have to wait long. Bob needs to go first. "It's going to overflow," he says as he pisses haphazardly into the Jack in the Box cup. About ten minutes later it's Bill's turn. As I look at the two full cups of piss sitting in my cup holders, complete with bobbing cherries, I think very seriously about what else one can do for $12.50 an hour.