Languages in LA

West Hollywood is so sunny and well-bred that occasionally I am overcome with the urge to do something barbaric just to rattle the natives. Nothing appalling, mind you, like failing to smile at dogs and small children. Nothing that will give me a lifelong reputation, like snarling at those damn Salvation Army bell-ringers.

No, just something unexpected and peculiar enough to set them back on their well-heeled heels, their French manicures fluttering in consternation. Something that will bring a whiff of The Other into the breezeless, blue-skied days.

I hit on the perfect act of rebellion, something that violates boundaries but with perfect moral authority, something that suggests a self-sufficiency combined with a disregard for appearances that, in a woman, raises red flags all over: when I buy a cord of firewood, I grab the whole thing and haul it right into the store and up to the cashier.

This is fun. The accepted method is simply to tell the cashier that you are buying firewood and then you take it on your way out. Or better yet, if you are female, you let a store employee pick it up for you, so you won’t muss yourself.

Muss, hell, I pick that baby up and stomp into the store. The security guard jumps out of my way, utterly baffled. Skeletal matrons with plump lips stare through their sunglasses as I stagger past them. Cashiers’ smiles die on their faces and they shrink perceptably as the ragged wood comes toward them.

My grandfather used to cut wood out back with an ax. Here, people mince up to the cashier delicately extending their Visa cards. Somewhere between the ax and the Visa is me.