So many stories have I collected in the past few days. I HAVE NO IDEA where to start…

So I guess I will start at the beginning.

We arrived in LA after a flight with a teething baby.

Not fun. We did get sympathetic smiles and a few people saying, “He wasn’t as bad as you think.” Or “I hardly noticed him.” Or my personal favourite: “It is nice to be reminded of what’s behind me now that mine are all grown up!”

Anyway. Not a great flight. Also, not the absolute worst we have ever had.

So.

We land, we call our very dear friend D, tell him about our plight and offer to check into a hotel, he suggests that would be daft, so we turn up at his (and his amazing, intelligent and wonderful wife C’s) house. I shall change their names into their real names if/when they have had a chance to read this and approve of me doing so.

We LOVE this house. We possibly love it more than our own home, because it is safe, always clean, they take out-of-this-world-level care of us, it means great conversation, peace, and always either heralds the beginning or the end of an adventure for us as LA is the gateway to the entire rest of the planet when you live in New Zealand.

So we arrive, we’re relaxed and happy; we try to nap but want to catch up with our friends so do that instead.

I had to head down to the chemist (pharmacy) to pick a couple of things up for James, so I googled something and headed off while Phteven and C drank very nice Riesling and waited for some amazing Mexican take out food.

THIS is where today’s story begins.

The chemist (pharmacy) I chose was a little independent one with a couple of off-street parking spaces. Not a huge and faceless Walgreens, but a little family owned spot.

A tall and attractive black man held the door for me and I thanked him as I rumbled the grizzly, snotty, red-cheeked fruit of my loins through into the pharmacy.

The young man at the counter had beautiful full sleeve tattoos on both arms, and was obviously of Latin American descent (going to take a wild stab in the dark and say Mexican?)

He was helping a gentleman in front of me who was filling some prescription.

Friendly, professional, knowledgeable tatted up guy made eye contact, smiled a big smile and said he’d be right with me, without interrupting or being rude to his current customer.

Current customer was a gloriously geeky guy in his early 30’s I’d guess. (For those of you new to my blog, I have a massive soft spot for geeky. Geeky makes me swoon.)

Current customer ahead of me also had a very thick stutter and perhaps a slight tick? He took a little while to get through his consultation.

When he did and it was my turn I strolled up to the counter, beamed a huge hobbit smile at the young man at the counter and said:

“I just flew in from New Zealand, and man are my arms tired! KIDDING! Now, I totally understand it isn’t his fault, but this moderately disgusting ball of snot has just kept me up all night on the flight over, and I am out of panadol and can only give him ibuprofen every 8 hours, and we’d also benefit greatly from something to calm him the **** down.”

Now, this could have gone either way. Lucky for me, in this almost empty little family run pharmacy (chemist) everyone in ear shot thought I was HILARIOUS.

Smiley tatted up guy got the pharmacist to come talk to me, gloriously geeky guy in front of me giggled a bit, and much ice was broken and much rapport was enjoyed by all.

Long discussion on chemical names for drugs and dosages takes place (and is overheard by gloriously geeky guy) and I settle on some Tylenol (which is the closest thing to Panadol) and also some Benadryl for his snot issues and to help him get some much needed rest.

Proceed to checkout. Have long and laughter studded chat with check out lady whose sister has four kids (just like I do!).

I then head back to rental car, struggle in a jet-lagged daze for a few minutes with the pram and car seat. Smiley tatted up guy comes out and has a good long chat with me about a park up the road. He said it isn’t far and they do lots of shooting for various films and TV there, so maybe I’d run into someone famous. I told him we have the teeny tiniest taste of fame back home in New Zealand, and it is wonderful and difficult, so would rather keep as far out of the California limelight as possible for today anyway.

We chat a little bit longer, and he apologises for having to take his leave, but he is working.

THEN.

Then Gloriously Geeky Guy pops over and tells me all about the etymology of paracetamol and acetominophen. He also tells me a bunch of other super awesome sciency stuff.

This dude has eyes the colour of a tropical lagoon. Deep blue with a hint of green.

His stutter is thick and quite distracting, but it was a wonderful opportunity to exercise some self-control, as I always ALWAYS interrupt people without a stutter, and I did pretty good not to interrupt Gloriously Geeky Guy.

We exchanged names, laughed about how I sometimes feel like I have to abandon all logic before entering the US, he laughed and agreed and we shared commiserations on the state of the planet and climate change deniers.  I shook his hand and told him he made my week.

Then I headed back up the hill to tell our friends about my adventures. I particularly couldn’t wait to tell Phteven about Gloriously Geeky Guy and how attractive I thought he was.

And that… is where today’s installment ends.

Tune in next time for my blog on having an open marriage! (Not like open, open… but like, we don’t have any secrets and it TOTALLY works for us)

Thank you for reading… I know this was a long one.

XXOO