This afternoon I was cruising through the WeHo Pavilions parking lot in search of rest. I always feel guilty about taking a full-size space as I can fit in almost anywhere, but there was nothing to be had. Just like that two spots appeared to open up. I was behind two guys. I drove past one as another swerved into a spot, and suddenly I noticed what seemed to be a third spot on the right.

I pulled in, shut the bike off.  Two or three seconds later one of the guys I had passed was honking. The honks meant “hey, I wanted that spot! It was mine — I decided that 15 seconds ago…I had dibbsees!”

Me to Angry Honker, shrugging gesture, smile: “Law of the jungle, dude. Sorry!”
Angry Honker (crew-cutted Latino guy with girlfriend/wife riding shotgun): “You’re an asshole!”
Me to Angry Honker: “Okay!”

Update from disappointed colleague (2.21, 11:30 pm): “It’s Oscar week, dude! You don’t have anything better to write about than parking at Pavilions?”

Me: “It happened, I wrote it up. But I also wrote seven article-riffs earlier today — the bludgeoning of Milo Yiannopoulos, Feud: Bette and Joan, Michael Schulman‘s New Yorker piece on the Oscar games, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Wadsworth’s forest primeval in Franklin Canyon, et. al.”