You Gotta Have Faith. Unless She's a Stripper Who's Sleeping With Your Husband.

I was waiting to cross Sunset Boulevard, on my way to the money order place, because I got my first parking ticket in LA ($68 for streetcleaning!!!) using someone else's car. Bark on my head! — as I used to say as a pre-teen, don't ask me why. I even painted a dog's head and mouth on the top of my bedroom's doorway so when you passed under it, it looked like a dog was actually barking on your head.

Anyways. So the light was red, and a matronly woman wearing 3D glasses and a backpack underneath her blue rain poncho was standing there, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. I pressed the walk button.



"I already pressed it!"
And I laughed and said, "I always press it more than once because it totally makes the light turn faster right?!"
"Right," she said and smiled.
"I have faith," I said.
"That's good," she said. "I don't."

I was mid-giving-her-sadface when my new back-pregnant friend smiled and said, "I got rid of her. Faith was a stripper who was sleeping with my husband."
"Oh!" I exclaimed and laughed.
"I got rid of Hope too!"

I started to ask about Charity, but Charity had obviously been spared — 3D-Poncho-Backpack Lady broke up the monotony of my day, making dropping $68 not totally suck frozen meatballs. "I'm glad I could make you smile," she said, and she headed to waste time on Sunset before picking up her daughter from school.