But…the economy sucks back home

May 30th, 2010 · 50 comments

“The other morning,” says our submitter from Los Angeles, “my boyfriend found this typed (on an honest to goodness typewriter!) note left for him on his windshield.” (Another car on the block with out-of-state plates had a similar message.)

“We’re not sure if the WeHo suggestion was meant to be homophobic or to imply we should be hanging out with our pals Heidi and Spencer at Hyde. Since we are neither gay nor from the cast of the Hills, it’s hard to say.”

GO BACK TO MICHIGAN!!! Your car is taking up too much space here!...GO ON!! LEEEEEAVE!! Go to West Hollywood or something!!!

related: I’m gonna say this in the nicest way possible: don’t park in my spot.

FILED UNDER: car · crazypants · Los Angeles · Michigan


50 responses so far ↓

  • #1   TheOldSchool bang

    The submitter’s phrasing: “nor from the cast of the Hills,” combined with the “WeHo” reference, leads me to the conclusion that she and her boyfriend have been in Los Angeles for far too long, even if they’ve only just arrived.

    The person who typed the message was probably just passing along orders from God or Rupert Murdoch.

    May 30, 2010 at 5:16 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #1.1   Z

      You must not be from CA…

      May 31, 2010 at 11:06 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #1.2   Mo® bang

      “Hatred was the only thing that kept my soul alive. And amongst the men I hated… was my dear old dumb father, who put me in that hell in the first place.”

      Jun 1, 2010 at 11:26 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #2   infanttyrone

    The note-writer might have better luck if they say that an old folding chair is still holding a good parking space for them back in MI.

    May 30, 2010 at 5:49 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #2.1   Chris D

      infanttyrone,

      In Chicago, they reserve parking spaces with old folding chairs.

      There are not enough people left in Michigan to bother saving a parking space.

      Get your Midwestern cultural references right!

      May 30, 2010 at 9:35 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #2.2   infanttyrone

      Chris,

      Thanks for the reminder/update.
      I had remembered only generically the Midwest from a thread a few months ago about reserving spaces in winter. Just rechecked it…
      Lots of folks wrote in from Minnesota, but none from Michigan.
      As they say at the Michigan State Gas Physics Department,
      “Thanks for Lansing that Boyle!”

      May 30, 2010 at 10:34 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #2.3   Andi

      There aren’t enough people to take up the parking spots we have….well, except at Wal-Mart.

      May 31, 2010 at 5:29 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #2.4   LittleSprout bang

      We did it in State College, PA, too.

      Jun 1, 2010 at 11:13 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #3   AuntyBron

    Dear Note Writer,
    Thank you for your suggestions for our next vacation. However, we require bit of clarification. Should we go to Michigan or West Hollywood? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) They are in opposite directions, you know. You did know that, didn’t you? And there is quite a difference cost distribution. Michigan is a couple thousand miles East-North East, which would require an airplane trip or an unconscionable amout of time in a car. I, personally, think that our time and money would put to much better use with a short car trip to West Hollywood, where we can find all sorts of delightful … company and … entertainment.

    That having been said, we invite you to further enlighten us with your ignorant, tight-as opinion.

    Sincerely
    The Michigander

    May 30, 2010 at 5:56 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #4   Jorge Barnes

    Man, I LOVE the “go on!” part… You can just picture a 90 year old note writer, who was hip and with it back in the 40′s when people actually talked like that.

    May 30, 2010 at 5:58 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #4.1   Woman on the Verge bang

      I picture an old man with white shoes and gold buckles making “shoo” gestures with his hands…

      May 31, 2010 at 8:44 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #4.2   Pterosaur

      Dern whippersnappers, wit yer fancy ‘lectric typewriters and rock & roll music! G’won, git!

      May 31, 2010 at 9:24 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #4.3   Mo® bang

      I say you roue, pop in your monocle and hie thee in yon flivver to the wolverine state. Fie Fie I say!
      Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice!

      Jun 1, 2010 at 11:13 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #4.4   Neeners

      If my grandpa was still alive, this would be him writing. Oh wait, he would need those tiny plastic sheets of white out instead of the dash strikes though.

      I love it. The time it took to hunt and peck shows real enthusiasm for this really important note!

      I feel stupider for having read it. Thank you!

      Jun 1, 2010 at 6:16 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #5   infanttyrone

    Coulda been a stoner Lakers fan who hadn’t noticed that the Pistons went 27-55 and weren’t even remotely in the playoff picture.

    If I had a car in LA with Massachusetts plates, I’d garage it for a while.

    May 30, 2010 at 6:00 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #6   ClearlyDemented

    It’s kind of comforting creepy to see the strikeout used in its native form.

    May 30, 2010 at 6:05 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #7   amy d bang

    Does a car shrink upon arriving in its home state or something?

    May 30, 2010 at 6:21 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #8   Anon in MI

    No one from Los Angeles could survive Michigan. No one would give a flying fox about their ego.
    Well that, and they’re all poncy as all get out. So stay in LA, Los Angelenos.

    May 30, 2010 at 6:58 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #8.1   AuntyBron

      Damn Straight, Anon. Those sissies would panic at the first hard frost – not to mention actual snow.

      May 30, 2010 at 10:49 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #8.2   aaa bang

      Pfft, Michigan is nothing compared to Montana. You can’t say that you’ve experienced a hardcore winter until it’s -60° F outside, your spit freezes before it hits the ground, and your Rubbermaid trash can has frozen and shattered.

      May 30, 2010 at 11:12 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #8.3   Canthz_B bang

      I’m not sure about Poncy, but John (with his blond hair and all) could probably handle the Nordic conditions of the upper mid-west.

      I do know they’d eat the opportunity to try it like a bag of CHiPs.

      May 31, 2010 at 3:16 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #8.4   Z

      Snow? HA! I’m a pussy and will stay in LA where it’s nice…Till summer.

      May 31, 2010 at 11:09 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #9   Walker, "Tex" (a stranger) bang

    There’s something very twilight zone going on there. I mean, can you even get ribbons for typewriters anymore?

    May 30, 2010 at 7:30 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #9.1   not gen anything

      Yeah, I’m thinking the car is sucking the life force right out of the poor time traveler. Can’t you sense the desperation in the way he typed LEEEEEAVE?

      May 30, 2010 at 9:21 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #9.2   park rose bang

      I’m viewing it more as a kind of snide vituperation, such as if Capote wrote it and spoke like a camp OTT guest on Oprah (on the rare occasion that she has been known to cross the boundaries of good taste, and really, in the case of Capote, as if!).
      And as if he were still alive, of course.
      And as if the submitter had parked outside Capote’s residence or on his street.
      So many hypotheticals.
      Girlfriend, there is no way your gas guzzler is going to clash with my drapes. Leeeeave!!
      I’m sure he would be capricious/OCD enough to still use a manual typewriter and to have a hoard of ribbons to dip into whenever the mood overtook him.
      By the way, being taken by a manual typewriter ribbon is quite a strange but exquisite experience, I’ve heard tell. Only for the real connoisseur of refined but hardcore tastes. Definitely not for the faint of heart or for those try-hard WeHo Hos. Go manual, or GO ON! Leeeeave!! is the motto. Whatever that means. I don’t really know. I got a bit distracted fingering my own carriage return while writing this. I have come to the conclusion though that dénouement lacks something when it is achieved by automatic means. The sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety is not quite as prolonged nor as sweet. Maybe Capote was onto something. *Ding!*

      May 30, 2010 at 11:12 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #9.3   infanttyrone

      rose,
      Enjoyed reading of catharsis so much I am free of tension and anxiety, although a little guilt remains from a sense of reading over your shoulder what might have been meant as a private journal entry.

      1) Maybe our note writer has been conditioned (ding!) to react to cars with out-of-state plates the way some of us might be conditioned to react to manual typewriters and their accoutrements, and his note is based not on anger but on shame he has not yet been deconditioned of. Pavlov rules?

      2) If you replace Capote with Elmore Leonard, the note might be in longhand and torn from a page of a yellow legal-sized pad.
      He writes before typing things up on the newfangled technology.
      Maybe he’s super-green and not into squandering ink resources?
      Or just horribly old-fashioned…

      May 31, 2010 at 6:34 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #9.4   Mo® bang

      You can still get ribbons.
      Don’t ask how I know.
      Smith-Corona forever!

      WOLVERINES!!!

      Jun 1, 2010 at 11:16 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #10   pilgrimchick

    I find the fact that someone put enough thought into this that a word processor was involved in the message creation process.

    May 30, 2010 at 10:31 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #10.1   infanttyrone

      Please finish and tell us how you find that fact…

      May 30, 2010 at 10:37 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #11   aaa bang

    Is this supposed to be some sort of bitchy poem or something?

    May 30, 2010 at 11:14 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #11.1   Mo® bang

      War of the Words
      Carbon copied mercenary
      Hating your Honda

      Jun 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #12   Canthz_B bang

    Dear loser,

    I’m from EAST Hollywood, Michigan.

    Your globe is upside down!!

    May 31, 2010 at 3:27 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #13   Woman on the Verge bang

    Dear Luddite,

    I take offense at your blatant prejudice against people from Michigan and West Hollywood. I have contacted Al Sharpton and he advised me to tell you to shove your typewriter up your wrinkled old ass and join us in this century.

    Fuck you,

    Big-Ass Car Driver from Out of Town

    May 31, 2010 at 8:48 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #13.1   Neeners

      That’s where the writer is typing it from…the ass!

      By rolling the pelvis forward while lying on the back, this better enables easy access at the keys by extending arms through the legs! (Don’t ask how I know!!)

      Picture that without throwing up. It is really hard to use white out that way without spilling on some unmentionable area, thus the strike-through instead of reinserting a new piece of paper and risking paper cuts on the old whistler.

      Jun 1, 2010 at 6:24 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #14   Matt

    Can’t even splurge for the typewriter that can erase? Mine can erase, one letter, a whole word, a whole line. Fancy and shiny. I’ve used it like once and I got it for $5 because I thought it was BA.

    May 31, 2010 at 1:28 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #14.1   Sirius¤ bang

      I have an old broken-down IBM Selectric that I call Reagan, because it has no memory and no colon.

      Too soon?

      Jun 1, 2010 at 5:16 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #14.2   infanttyrone

      My wife had a hemicolostomy done a couple years ago.
      Now I have to find an old Selectric with no semicolon…
      Maybe just get a regular-used one and file down the semicolon ?
      Too much work to file down everything BUT the semicolon…
      Flowers and a basket full of bath goodies should help pave the way.

      Jun 1, 2010 at 5:42 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #14.3   Nahhh

      I suppose the moment has passed for punctuational menopause humor.

      Jun 3, 2010 at 5:33 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #14.4   infant tyrone bang

      The moving scalpel slices, and having slit, moves on ?

      Jun 3, 2010 at 7:06 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #15   Le lac

    I’d really like to know what kind of car the PA note recipient is driving. I have this nagging feeling that it’s half the size of the Lincoln landboat that the owner of the typewriter is driving.

    May 31, 2010 at 3:20 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #16   Edwina the Defrocked Nun

    The interest of the remaining few passive-aggressive notes (the stock of which is dwindling rapidly) is eclipsed entirely by the back-and-forth repartee among a few regulars of the Comments section on this blog.

    I have spoken.

    Jun 1, 2010 at 11:43 am   rating: 90  small thumbs up

    • #16.1   park rose bang

      Such as your own, Edwina? I visit the blog for the comments, so I might say the repartee heightens (often, not always, especially including myself) rather than eclipses the notes. I enjoy your comments and others. As you stated, there are only so many PAN themes in the world.

      Jun 1, 2010 at 1:21 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #16.2   Mo® bang

      When he moved to Hollywood he had to go door to door to tell everyone he was a pederast.

      Jun 1, 2010 at 4:04 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
    • #16.3   infanttyrone

      I’ve been traveling and may have missed the PAN version of someone or a committee here making a determination of just how close we are to and how quickly we are approaching the heat-death of the universe or maximal entropy condition, so please allow me to offer an opposing viewpoint.

      We are humpming along toward a population of what Bucky would have termed “7 billion Earthians”.

      If we graph the possible unique, person-to-person interactions in a Cartesian plane, we get a pretty bang-up number of possible PAN notes that could be written, which, although large enough to keep us supplied here on this site on a scale seemingly close to perpetuity, well, it’s still quite short of anything like what we think of as infinite. Plus, there are only so many PAN’s that we can get excited about if they’re about folding chairs holding parking places for residents vs. visitors in Harbin during the time of the Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. (They’re coming.)

      Okay, so we’re only working with a measly 7 billion or so squared quantity, but wait…that’s only the # of possible PAN’s related to a single topic, e.g. snow-parking. We have a Sagan-esque number of possible participants in human interactions, culture, daily living with and without strange loops and chaotic attractors…call it what you like.

      Given a small number of sufficiently educated and motivated participants (sort of like our wacky band of regularly irregular rogues here), I believe they could generate an ongoing supply of nearly unique PAN’s such that, while not literally infinite in the today sense, they could be the basis for an evolving (in quality) and growing (in quantity) set of PAN’s, which, while it would never be infinite, would ever be growing.

      Now, I may have something here…and then again all this may be a lot of hot-air-horseshit generated as a result of reading an interesting article about using Cantorian transfinite numbers to provide a solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem…which, for any interested parties, is here…
      http://www.uhh.hawaii.edu/~dixon/infinite.html

      Jun 1, 2010 at 9:59 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

       
     
  • #17   HandyMarigolds

    Typewritten PAN is proof undeniable that you don’t want to tick off Los Angeles-area motorists. Next thing you know, you’re just another drive-by-musketing statistic.

    I learned that one the hard way when I was telegraphing at the wheel.

    Jun 1, 2010 at 1:10 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #18   park rose bang

    The submitter and her boyfriend may not be gay nor, but I am sure they will survive.

    Jun 1, 2010 at 1:33 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #19   bitsame

    California has a big problem of people moving here but keeping their (cheaper) out-of-state license plates. If you live here and are going to drive here, do your part and pay your car taxes here! Damn moochers.

    Jun 2, 2010 at 12:34 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #20   Marty McFly

    Dang! That’s where I left my typewriter.

    Jun 2, 2010 at 9:45 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     
  • #21   xindi

    Go bach Mozart to Hollywood! Chopin Saint-Saëeeeeeeens Rachmaninoff!!!!!!!!!

    Jun 3, 2010 at 2:19 pm   rating: 90  small thumbs up

     

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