Things You See If You Look

Today I was driving to meet with my friend Jeremy in East Hollywood- we're working on a screenplay together- and my car ran out of gas. I usually get a LOT of miles when it says 'empty' but I took it too close to the wire and the car sputtered and choked out after only a couple of acceleration bursts. I totally know the drill- yeah, I've run out of gas several times before because I'm a risk junkie and/or idiot- and I switched off between rolling in neutral to allow maximum distance with my established momentum, and putting it back in forward gear to squeeze bursts of motorized acceleration from whatever last clouds of fumes were in the tank. It crapped out and came to stop on the 101 Freeway, across from Universal, a 10 min walk to the next exit. I parked in the far right shoulder lane, put on my emergency reds, got my plastic gas tank out of the trunk and walked down to the exit, where, luckily, there was a gas station. If you've never walked on the side of an LA freeway, these roadways are vastly different when you're right on their edge and not inside a vehicle. Speeds that seem casual and normal when one is in traffic become excessive and intimidating when you're a stationary and unprotected human being just a few feet away. Cars, SUV's, trucks and motorcycles become loud, hostile, potential killing machines and even their motorized roar harbors a cold meanness. I walked along with my gas can, pushing the thought of grotesque, near-instant death out of my mind, and took in the scrubby, shrubby terrain next to the asphalt. Multiple small lizards darted away as we crossed paths. Random garbage dotted the strange embankment landscape. And then I came across an object for which I had to do a double take. It was a very large brown dildo- the realistic kind, shaped like an actual penis, except bigger than probably 99% of real ones. It had the abridged, bottom-flattened attached "balls",  was lying on it's side and appeared to be made out of rubber or even some speckled waxy substance. Why was this extra large brown dildo abandoned on the side of the 101? And who throws such a thing out a car window?  Perhaps non-automobile-owning pedestrians in the embankment/shoulder area were responsible for the sadly neglected sex toy and this scrubby, fringey terrain was their playroom. I successfully got my gas, walked back to the car and got out of there, safely. Some mysteries are better left alone, and far back beyond the receding horizon of the rear view mirror.