My trip to Santa Barbara

This morning I headed out for Santa Barbara, but around Santa Monica, I decided the traffic looked better going the other way, so I turned around and wound up in Oceanside. I stopped in at the tourist bureau and the old ladies manning the desk finally ran out of visitors from Missouri, so they were forced to ask me where I'm from. I was about to say the South Bay, but I could see by their frowns they expected as much, so I said, "Uhhh...Los Angeles." (It's clear why I do improv, isn't it?)

I almost got the idea, as I was trying to come up with some place like Burkina Faso, that they were rooting for me...the more I hesitated, the more hopeful they looked. When I finally ended up from Los Angeles, they shrugged and looked motherly, as if I got points for at least trying.

I asked, "Is there a beach in Oceanside?" (Thus implying that although I was from Los Angeles, at least I was from some place inland, like Korea Town.) They looked excited and got out a big map and pointed at the beach, which was about two blocks away. "It looks very big," I said. "I might actually be able to find it."

"Oh, don't worry," one old lady said, "We'll point you in the right direction."

The other lady, who apparently wasn't listening that closely, chimed in, "No, to get to the beach, she has to go left out of the parking lot, then right. On Mission. Then she comes out at the pier."

"Oh yes! The pier! If you like big, you'll love our pier. Oceanside has the longest wooden pier in all of California." (When the old ladies said 'longest wooden pier', it didn't have the connotation it has now. Or maybe it did. Who knows what lurks in the minds of beehived old ladies.)

"And at the end of the pier...." One old lady traced her pearly pink fingernail along the pier on the map, so as to build up tension. But she stopped half-way, as if she forgot the tension and was back to thinking about directions.

I asked, "What's at the end?"

"A Rubio's!"

So much for a pot of gold. I ended up skipping the pier. Then I decided to skip Oceanside. Now I'm back home.

THE END