On Friday, when my colleagues asked if I was doing anything this weekend, I told them I was going to see Bill Maher at the Grove in Anaheim. I was much looking forward to it, since my husband and I don’t really go out at night except for dinner, so this was going to be a nice night out.
So, Sunday night rolls around and we are sitting down to dinner and arguing because my husband wants to add garlic to the soup I made him, and I am requesting that he please taste it before making adjustments and then we are silently glaring and eating and watching Carlos Mencia on TV. My husband says, oh, I hope his whole routine isn’t just the show, because we’ve got tickets to see Carlos Mencia in a few weeks, and are really looking forward to that show too.
Suddenly we realize that we are sitting at the dinner table when we should be in Anaheim! Holy crap! We look at the clock and each other and think, oh, we’ll never make it, yes we can, go get dressed, what should I wear, we’ll never make it, there will be an opening act, what if their isn’t, where are the seats, I would hate to be late if the seats are really good we’ll get heckled, I don’t know I’ve never been there before what should we do, lets just go, ok let’s go, don’t drive like a maniac we don’t want to get a ticket, at least we aren’t the only ones that arrived late, there’s plenty of cars behind us waiting to park, these seats are great, wow we got here just in time!
In the end, we left our house at 7:40 and arrived in Anaheim by 8:05, and Bill hit the stage at about 8:15 or so. Pretty lucky!
Then, as we are waiting to leave the parking lot, we are waiting, waiting, waiting and someone finally leaves enough space for me to get out and I followed this long line of cars in the opposite direction of the rest of the cars, all around the stadium ( The Grove is in the parking lot of, what is it now, Edison Field? Where the Angles play) and we are going all in a line, about 40 cars and I am in the middle of the pack. Driving and driving, and after a few minutes, I wonder if the leader is the right person to be following, but so many people are following, I figure, ok, we’re good they must know the secret exit. Uh, no.
We are following and suddenly instead of seeing just tail lights, we start seeing headlights because the exits are all closed off and the cars are turning around. Uh, no. So I go straight instead of falling in line before the giant U-Turn and follow some of the cars that already turned around in a new direction, and now we are heading for the exit that we use when we go to a baseball game, except my husband and I know that the barriers are up at that exit since we saw it when we came in to the Grove. We both look at each other and in perfect unison, shout “Rock and Roll” because we realize we are having a total Spinal Tap moment and feel pretty stupid for following the wrong line of cars.
We get to the exit and of course it’s blocked off just like we knew it would be. Instead of turning around, however, I decided, in my mini-ute CR-V, to finally go off roading for the first time since I got it 6 years ago. My husband gets out and walks along the sidewalk to make sure there is no sudden drop off or danger and I drive up onto the sidewalk, over the lawn, and, checking for Anaheim’s finest (nowhere to be seen) I drive onto the street, pick up my husband, make a U-Turn, and head right for the Carpool lane ramp onto the 5 and head home.
Behind me, all the luxury sedans, Priuses, Lexus SUVs and Mercedes SUVs and some aggro Nissan SUV all turned around and continued on the wild goose chase. Only the Land Rover followed me out of the maze and into the night.
Oh yeah, the show was good too.