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An LA Moment
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North Carolina resident and Huntsville Monitor columnist Judy Rozzelle gives her readers a bracing view of Los Angeles. While the weeks of rain spoiled her pre-fabricated impression of perpetually sunny city, Ms. Rozzelle still found stereotypes to amuse the folks back home.
In January, Lee [her friend in Los Angeles] and I were visiting a boutique with my two small Pomeranians, Jipper and Sassy. While I was browsing, a saleslady petted my dogs. Jipper and Sassy act like love-starved beggars for attention. It is a sport with them. They roll over, stand on tip-toe, begging for attention and petting. As we were leaving, Lee told the saleslady that Jipper and Sassy were rescued dogs. "My goodness, what do they rescue? Cats?" she asked.
This was certainly an L.A. moment and a good example of TMS.
Later, as we were descending to the parking lot via an escalator. A woman leaned over the top of the escalator and hollered to us.
"Your dogs are Pomeranians. I know because I train German shepherds."
I was still pondering that comment when the woman in front of us turned and said, "Well, I was just thrown out of Nordstrom's because of my dog. Did your dogs get you thrown out also?"
I kept looking for her dog, but none of the packages were moving and I could not see a dog anywhere. As we were waiting for the valet to bring our cars to the front, she turned to talk to us. When she did, there was a very small dog snuggled in her cleavage. My first instinct was to point at it.
She pulled her small dog out of its nesting place and introduced us to Bijou, a fawn-colored Applehead Chihuahua. Bijou could not have weighed much more than a pound, but she was dressed in a pink tutu and a jeweled collar. Before I could ask if the dog could dance, the valet drove up in a huge white Hummer and held the door for her to get into the car. In a flash, Bijou was tucked back into her cleavage close to her owner's heart and they drove off to another adventure. Was this woman a victim of TMS [Too Much Sun Syndrome -a metaphor the writer cooked up to explain LA behavior]? I think so. It was certainly an L.A. Moment.
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