Hysteria. . . Part Three: Irvine and Two Conditioners

Are you plugged in yet?

Surfer muzak puts that extra spring in your step in the 6:00 a.m lobby of a Marriott in Southern California.

Bright eyed and leary biz types with strangely alert a.m. buzz already dot the café chairs in their wrinkle free shirts; such garments are made of unnamed chemicals that keep the material fresh and ready for just about anything. Starbucks Grande Latte Extra Watery sits on several tables along with the ubiquitous laptops. These are white collar indentured servants with many years ahead of them on the rack- and that only if they’re lucky enough not be axed in the next downsizing.  Large buses outside wait to transport them to some gigantic, mind numbing gathering as they gulp their morning rations.

Across the road the huge, slightly terrifying Taco Bell sign hovers over all, though not especially comfortingly. During the day it’s not that noticeable; at night it sits large and bright, forlorn on the horizon, and if you happen to be staying at the hotel it also serves to tell you when to exit the freeway. The sign makes you glad you do not work at any of the corporate headquarters in this or any other world. It beckons not with the green light at the end of of Daisy's dock, but with rather a garish sort of pink, like the polluted air around certain urban centers.

As if all that weren’t enough, on my first morning after a jet lagged sleep, I discovered to my horror that instead of bringing my very favorite, sample size magical shampoo and conditioner- (that which would have saved me from the merciless and cruelly hard hotel water with no pressure that thus prevents effective rinsing)- I had instead managed to pack two conditioners. In other words, no shampoo, just two (now useless) goddamn conditioners. Like a bad dream I suddenly saw it all in a flash. Hard Water. No water pressure. Hair bedlam. No real inclination to get to a CVS in my PJs before showering, not that they would stock this salon grade life saving potion anyway. And even if I were willing to swallow my pride and drive over there coffee-less, clothes rumpled from the night before, so as not to waste even one of my precious, fresh outfits stashed in the burgeoning carry on, I’d still be forced to settle on some inferior product, possibly a store brand. . . . 

The sun already is blazing unusually hot as I peel open the tiny cream cheese packet in pill box size that came with my frozen bagel. A brochure on a nearby table blaring “Welcome to the Center of Orange County is all about the man & woe-man made “community” of Irvine, a thing I repeatedly want to call Irving because it sounds so much more human.  As I toy with the “bagel” on my paper plate, I go over the list of all the startling advantages the place purportedly has to offer, and then I transliterate the whole thing into reality (see parentheses):

“Irvine was master-planned. . . .”

(think Stepford village, on steroids baby, like you can't believe)

“A leading business center with more than 100 corporations”

(Actually, they own it, they are it, and it is they)

“Family oriented. . . multicultural. . . celebrates diversity”

(In three trips I’ve seen exactly one black person)

“Beautifully manicured office parks”

(office parks???)

“Recognized as America’s safest city”

(This definitely scares me)

I gaze out the window and muse that yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the dazed, I shall fear no evil, master planning or otherwise. . . .  Then I finally accept the breakfast situation, smear the tiny dollop of cream cheese allotment onto my “bagel” and take a swig of the Grande Watery.

Skoll. L'Chaim. Down the hatch. Here's looking at you, Irvine.