A Brush with Fame

Living in Los Angeles on occasion has those moments when you encounter the famous. You may pull up to a traffic light and look over and see a renowned actor in the car next to you, or find yourself dining a few tables away from a popular singer. I remember attending a party and being introduced to a local radio personality. When I was in my early twenties I also remember the guy my parents had hired to paint their house telling me how he met Arnold Schwarzenegger working out at the gym he goes to. "He's a lot shorter than I thought he was", he tells me. My own wife has done a bit of extra work on Unsolved Mysteries and on a Twix commercial that only aired in the UK, and always just a bit less than enough to get into the SAG.

Here's my latest such incident. Came in a roundabout way, but here's how it went. Around a month back I had turned onto a local street, that at the time had the end the way I was heading away from blocked by a fire truck. It is a smaller residential street, on a bit of a rise, on which I was heading downward. I say smaller, but it's wide enough that two cars can pass each other even when there are cars parked on either side... provided each one stays towards their respective sides. Well, since the street was blocked, a giant truck coming the other way had made the obvious choice and stopped in the road. Naturally, they were taking up about 2/3 of the road, leaving not nearly enough room to get past. Whenever I see such a thing, I always think to myself, "If it's too big for you to drive properly, you SHOULDN'T BE DRIVING IT!!!" Anyway, I call out to them and motion for them to make some room, and they SLOWLY begin to creep forward and over, until I've got a little bit of room to get by, and I'm creeping by watching my side mirror, which is clearing the back end of the truck my maybe an inch, and as soon as I'm clear I start getting to going... Since I'd been watching the left side, I somehow forgot to pay attention to the right side, and BAM!!! Clipped a parked car's mirror with mine on that side!!! Dang!!! Knocked mine clean off, if it wasn't for the wire to the power motors, it would have been on the road!!! Pulled up around the corner and headed back to see what kind of damage I'd done to my victim.

It was a newer Honda sedan, in good condition, and it appeared to have those fold-away mirrors, a brilliant device to avoid the fate of my dangling mirror. I folded it back to where it belonged and was checking it for scrapes or other damage, and discovered that either I'd gotten it good enough, or it wasn't designed to go that way, but it had broken off a good portion of the bottom of the outer portion. I got a scrap of paper and left a note with my phone number and said for them to get it repaired and I'd take care of it.

A few days later the owner had left a message, and a week or more later I finally got back in touch with her. I kept forgetting until late in the evening, after what I would consider a decent hour to return her call. She hadn't gotten a quote yet (probably not wanting to waste the time in case I'd left a bogus number) but she took my E-mail address and sent me a copy of the quote a couple days later. I replied for her to give me her an address to mail a check to, and I'd see to it.

When we had talked, I asked her if she lived in the area so I could get a copy of the bill or quote and write out a check, and she said no, she'd been in the area for a shoot. Once I'd written the check and mailed it off, I was curious if she was anyone I might have seen, and it turns out I more than likely have!!! She's done parts in NCIS Los Angeles, New Girl, and How I Met Your Mother, among several others. I don't know what else she does (it would be cliche to say all up and coming actors are also waiters) but best of luck and wishes to Anisha Adusumilli!!!

Oh, and a little postscript, while it looked like my car had fared far worse, I was able to epoxy the posts for the mirror mount back together and it appears as good as new!!!