At Musso and Frank grill, Est. in 1927 – It’s my birthday and time to celebrate this day. My girlfriends and I met at Musso and Frank Grill in the heart of Hollywood to celebrate as we could only do in such a great occasion.
It’s the most wonderful restaurant in the Hollywood area with hundreds of photographs signed by the most recognized people in the movie industry. We usually celebrate each other’s birthdays by meeting here for lunch and also because is central to our residences.
Aside from celebrating my birthday, I was also breaking in my new truck, yes, a truck. My dream purple truck with flames painted on the sides, double set of lights, leather interior and double cab with a leather bra on the front grill. It was to die for.
Knowing the area is not the safest in Los Angeles, I made sure all the doors were locked and the alarm was on. To make it double safe, I also bought a T-lock for the steering wheel; I was determined to keep this truck all to myself and not share it with anyone, especially thugs.
My girlfriends and I had a grand time, we ate, we celebrated, we had a huge piece of dessert, and we said our goodbyes until the next time.
This being the time before cell phones, I used the payphone at the corner to call grumpy and tell him I was on my way home; as I was talking with him, I noticed four gang-looking young thugs eyeing my beautiful new truck, and while still on the phone, I yelled from across the street to get away from my new truck.
Grumpy asked what was going on, and I said four thugs were looking at my truck in a rather suspicious way and I would call him back. I hung up the phone, hurried to my new truck and in no uncertain terms asked the hoodlums not so politely to get away from the truck in both languages in case they claimed not to understand English. I was furious; “I was just admiring it, it’s such a great color!” one of the thugs said.
Thankfully they left and I made my way to the truck door, unlock all of the locks and got on my way. I stopped at the office to make sure there were no messages since this is before cell phones were popular or even invented, answered the calls which had come in while I was out and stopped at a client’s office to chat for a while. After all, this is rush hour in Los Angeles and it will take a while to get home.
On my way, I realized I had not called Grumpy back after the incident with the thugs and stopped once again to use the pay phone; it had only been about 4 hours.
Needless to say, he was frantic with worry; the last time he had heard from me was when I ran across the street to get the thugs away from the truck and he’d been waiting for a return phone call since. Oh, well. Sorry!
After all, it didn’t take him long to trade-in my beautiful new truck for a new truck of his own. Such is life.