Day 5: Barstow to L.A.
It has been a while since Day 1 was posted, and the end of Day 4 marked the midway point, so here's a cast review.
Cast of characters: Andrew (me), B (Marisa’s brother), T&M (married couple, friends of ours and former neighbors who now live in Albuquerque, NM), sergeantbond (our friend Nate, d’uh), N (sergenatbond’s wife), J (sergeantbond&N’s son).
Disclaimer: this is a true story, but the names of persons and places have been changed to protect the innocent.
Announcer Voice: When we last left our dynamic duo, they had just arrived in their state of destiny, California, Barstow to be precise. Let's check in with them to see how they're doing, shall we?
Day 5, Friday, 5-20-05
Although we got a good deal on our room, it contained what B and I identified as one of the ugliest paintings we have ever seen.
We had excellent weather again on our last 125 miles from Barstow, California to B’s new apartment in Los Angeles. The apartments looked quite impressive from the outside. We went in, met an office manager and sat down to discuss the lease terms. About twenty-five heavily-inked pages later, B leaned that he was going to have to pay prorated rent for the first month, due in ten days, while his first paycheck would not be received for two weeks. Begin panic and irritation! Nevertheless, he signed the lease and then we did a walk through with the office manager to verify the condition of the particular apartment. Everything looked good, so the keys were handed over.
Once we had brought in the luggage, we discussed what items needed to be purchased for the new bachelor pad. B had already decided that cost was to be the primary decision making factor, so he was only going to buy a mattress, a table and a chair and just never invite anyone over, ever. sergeantbond called to see how we were doing and offered a chair and mattress through the family, meaning N’s extended family, many of whom live in the Los Angeles area. This was the first bit of financial good news for B and he was ecstatic. To transport the mattress, we needed N’s dad’s truck, which was not available until tomorrow, so we headed off to the local Target to purchase the other smaller needed items.
We spent most of the day trying to get B’s access card working. The access card is needed to open all the external gates, including the garage with B’s parking space. The utter failure of the access card combined with the “surprise” prorated rent meant that B was not pleased. In the evening, we walked around the neighborhood, bought an L.A. road map, an overpriced skimpy pizza and milk, plus beer and cereal and headed back to the apartment for a late dinner.