My friend’s husband, Peter, picked me up at LAX, and we went for a drive into Santa Monica. There were some blocks on which I saw three or four sleek, shiny Priuses parked in a row, and others with Jags and Maseratis. There were very few 10-year-old Toyotas, like the one we were sitting in. We parked and went for a–gasp!–walk along Montana, one of the few strips that people drive to and park, in order to get out and walk.
Peter, like his wife Julie, was raised in New York City, and moved out here around eight years ago. He was explaining to me (a still-New Yorker) about car culture with the perspective of an insider who has somehow resisted buying in.
“It really matters here,” he said. “People really do judge you on your car.”
I said some version of what I say to my daughters whenever a kid at school is obnoxious to them: Why would you want to be friends with someone who judges you on what kind of car you drive? I was surprised to hear that peter even noticed such a thing. He’s the kind of guy who expressly doesn’t give a good goddamn what people think of him, strangers least of all.
“It really does make a difference here,” Peter insisted. He’s a freelancer. “It could affect your business.” He then went on to tell me what it’s like driving a decade-old Corolla in LA, and pulling up alongside a group of So-Cal beauties in a much nicer car. “I wasn’t looking to flirt or anything, but they didn’t even look at me. If you drive a crap car, it’s like you’re invisible.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Driving a crap car in LA is like being a 42-year-old woman practically anywhere. And what if, heaven forbid, you’re a 42-year-old woman driving a crap car?
I’m thinking the bus is sounding better and better.
Photo by Danilo Prates CC
November 8, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Great post. As a car-free girl, I was recently in Long Beach for the Women’s Conference and took the bus from the airport to the hotel (something the Women’s Conference logistics section failed to include – I mean seriously, who would pay $1.10 to ride a bus that drops off in front of the hotel when you can spend $30 to take a cab?!). I didn’t feel like a freak, but remembered why I love my hometown a little more every day.
November 8, 2009 at 11:44 pm
I once saw the Car-parazzi in LA taking a picture of a car. Seriously.
I take the bus in LA. Sometimes I’m the only white person on board.
You haven’t spent enough time in LA yet. There are 42-year-old women who turn lots of heads. Some, well many, women in LA spent huge amounts of time and money on looking younger, often with impressive results. But I’m sure NY is like that too.
I think your penultimate paragraph is too short. It teases at a whole bunch of stuff without elaborating. And it’s confusing. It seems like one of the main thrusts of your blog is the wonder of gaining perspective on life, getting older and worrying less about many things that used to consume you? I hate the fact that so many people in LA judge others by the cars they drive and I try not to associate with people who invest so much meaning into such status symbols. (Kinda like what you tell your kids.)
To whom exactly are you invisible as a 42-year-old woman? Hard to believe you’re invisible to people you care about. Referring to your own invisibility in such an offhanded way makes it sound inexorable, something you have to buy into. You don’t have to, and mostly you don’t in your blog.
Has LA really taken you over that quickly?