Convertible Smells

I actually had to drive to work today - I left my gym bag there Thursday - but since I was on a search-and-recover mission I took the hot rod instead of the truck. I had the top down and the heater cranked up, and I decided to see how long the commute would take on a lazy Saturday morning (details below). But with the top down I discovered a whole new science experiment.
   Man, LA stinks.
   And I don't just mean metaphorically, I mean actually. Without the hermetic isolation of rolled-up windows and blowing AC you can really experience the startling funk of Los Angeles. Coming down the 110 I got the familiar wafts of earth and plants, since there is a lot of open land around there. Open for LA, anyway. Not much to smell because it's a highway.
   Coming into downtown I got a metallic/concrete sniff, then some exhaust, of course. There was also, oddly enough, onions. Must have been from a taco truck or something.
   Going down Wilshire I really got into the Los Angeles-style of odors. Garbage, more exhaust, lots of urine, something rotten, cooking grease, beer, gasoline, wet dirt, and some sickly-sweet odor that followed me for a while but that I just couldn't place. Kind of like anti-freeze but that wasn't it.
   Coming back I went down 3rd, and there the odors were eclectic. Cotton candy, more exhaust, grass, melted plastic, new electronics, sewer gas, BO (really, passing a bus stop, it must have been truly epic), old lady perfume, pineapples, gunpowder and spray paint.
   In my experience the one way to really experience the spirit of a neighborhood is to walk it. But a close second would be to roll through in a convertible. It'll make you realize why you don't live there in the first place.



COMMUTE - not really a commute, since I wasn't working, but here's the best-case scenario when there is very little traffic:
there - 33 minutes      back - 31 minutes
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 56 days