When we arrived in Los Angeles, it was a gray and smoggy afternoon. My mom was suffering the effects of jet lag, I was glued to my first ever iPhone, and my dad was his bright and cheery self. The taxi ride down the city’s most bustling boulevards tried its best to eat away at his persevering patience, but he remained steadfastly smiling as traffic stalled, horns honked and upper class furies flared.
“Keep honking! It’s not gonna get you there any faster!” my mom pointed out astutely, struggling to conceal some annoyance.
“So when you first moved here from Haiti, was it a difficult adjustment period for you?” my dad asked the cab driver warmly, his grin holding strong in the face of the overbearing orchestra of beeps and open-windowed berating’s that surrounded our shabby little taxi.
“Ah, my friend, when I first arrive from Haiti, this city felt like another world. The pace, the noise, everything different. In Haiti, life moves to the rhythm of the island — it’s a dance. Here, it felt like everyone was in a rush but going nowhere fast. The buildings, so tall, the streets, so full, and the noise… a carnival every day, but without music,” the taxi driver replied with a thick creole accent.
“It must really be quite a lot to get used to! Do you still get the chance to go back home much?”
“You know, there’s a Creole saying, ‘Dèyè mòn gen mòn’ — ‘Beyond mountains, there are mountains.’ It mean every challenge we conquer only reveals more challenges. So, it’s about embracin’ the journey, no matter where you are.”
Once we’d arrived at the car rental venue, my dad one worldly interaction wiser, and my mom’s reservoir of patience depleting more quickly than my phone’s battery life, we were greeted by LA’s most stereotypical car salesman. Standing in the rental agency lobby, he had slick black hair, a name tag placed perfectly atop his chest, and a toothy grin that seemed prepared to sell us on a timeshare before his lips had even moved a muscle.
“Well, well! Welcome to sunny LA!” he said of the unambiguously cloud-covered day. “I can tell by the looks on your faces that you’re all set to cruise the golden coast in style.”
“Hi there! We called about a rental. The blue 2008 Honda fit, I believe it was…”
“Honda… Honda…” he muttered, pulling out a tablet and beginning to scroll. But as he scrolled more and more feverishly along the screen, the confidence drained from his face.
“Tell ya what,” he interjected buoyantly once his tablet had devolved into a moving whir of colors and numbers. “There was an error in our booking and the car you rented isn’t available… but we can send you out in this cherry red convertible, no extra charge,” he said seriously, looking toward my 5'2 on a good day, severely balding father with a hopeful smile and a faint bead of sweat trickling along his forehead.
Whether the salesman talked a good game, or my father briefly fancied himself riding down the Pacific Coast Highway — his wife at his side and the final remnants of his once full head of hair blowing in the salty breeze — was unclear. But it was precisely there that we found ourselves.
The thing about convertibles that people often fail to take into account is the people who have to sit in their backseats. So I spent the entire hour long ride from the rental agency to the lavish abode of my great uncle getting a firsthand experience of NASA’s wind tunnel testing. My parents tried their best to ignore my complaints. The roaring air did its part to help drown out my agonies. But eventually their sympathies got the better of them and they decided to relent.
The remainder of our time with the convertible was spent with its ugly top distended over our heads and my mom quietly pouting over the wasted potential. But it granted us new opportunities — like the ability to learn that it is in fact possible to lock yourself out of a convertible!
Days later, once we’d settled at my great uncle’s home, we were preparing to drive into Malibu. As we walked from the grand wooden gates of his beachfront home, my dad’s pace suddenly slowed.
He felt his pockets, listened for a jingle, and when he failed to hear it, froze for a second. A look surfaced on his face that was equal parts sheepish and soulful. His eyes beamed obliquely toward the car with a biting sort of epiphany and he sighed an accepting sigh.
“What?” asked my mom. “Oh, don’t tell me you locked the keys in the car…”
“Well… do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“What happened…” my mom trailed off anticipatorily, a brutal scolding welling in her throat.
“Yes. I did lock the keys in the car. But it’s a convertible… so shouldn’t be too hard to get them?” he replied, looking uncertainly toward the car once more, the cover sealed from its immaculate windshield to the pristine red bumper.
After ten minutes spent delicately trying to pry open the canvas canopy of the cherry red car — with the automotive expertise of a man who spent his career playing music — defeat began to set in.
“I don’t want to damage anything…” he mused, unperturbed but uninspired. He looked toward the car thoughtfully, but when no thoughts arose, we began considering dire options.
“Oh God, don’t tell me we locked ourselves out of a convertible,” my mom exclaimed with frustration before letting out an exasperated groan. She had a far less breezy attitude toward the painful reality that we managed to lock ourselves out of a near-lockout-proof car.
It was a fateful day, and it marked the first and only time our family ever called a locksmith. It was a mild setback to our journey, but it hardly stopped us from discovering the wonderful virtues of driving an unventilated vehicle through the sweltering deserts of the west. But those trying times are stories for other days.