Hello mixers, and happy October!
As promised last time, I come to you today with something a little different. It’s not an essay proper I guess, but more of a ridiculous story that I think it’s finally time to get down in writing.
Because now that it’s fall with Brat Summer in the rear view, I’m reminded of what could have been my brat summer before it even existed…
In the summer of 2014, I was back at home in the suburbs of LA in between my sophomore and junior years of college. I was working part-time at a retirement home in a made up job, which meant I was calling bingo, sorting meds in the nurse’s office, running errands, and working the front desk depending on the day and time.
Because I was only part-time, that meant I had spare hours to do whatever, including answering the call for music video extras. The music video in question? Break The Rules by Charli XCX. I loved Charli!!! Plus, I want to be famous!! Plus plus, the shoot location at a high school was a mere 20 minutes from work. This would be perfect.
The instructions were simple: show up, be young but over 18, bring a school uniform outfit, and bring a prom outfit. I met all the requirements and had hours to kill before work that evening. I drove over, checked in, and got my headshot taken in my uniform outfit. Then the other random extras and I waited under a tent for something to happen. And waited. And waited. At some point we were instructed to change into our party outfits, so we did. Then we waited some more. I wondered if we’d be doing something with the big yellow school bus parked nearby. As the hours ticked by, I grew antsier. I had to clock in for work soon, but I also desperately wanted to be in this video.
At some point I couldn’t wait any longer. I told our handlers that I was sorry but I had to leave. They couldn’t care less. So I ran back to my car, a beloved tan 2001-ish Toyota Camry, and drove away from my one claim to brat summer fame. What happened next, though, is retrospectively so Charli-music-video-core.
A hot August LA afternoon, I was slowly trying to change out of my prom dress into my work dress while cruising down the 210 freeway, AC blasting. At some point, I noticed my RPMs were going higher even though I wasn’t going any faster. An old car by that point, the Camry was always doing something funky so I sort of ignored it. But then the temperature gauge started climbing higher. I shut off the AC and merged my way over to the slow lane, cutting my speed. The car was lurching a little by then and the temperature gauge was still climbing. Then smoke started coming out from under the hood. What the fuck??
I pulled over onto the shoulder, already panicking, and shut off the engine. No luck—smoke was now coming into the car itself. I gathered all my stuff and got out of the car, dialing AAA. I watched the smoke billowing out across the 5 lanes of freeway, and all of a sudden there were flames coming out from under the roof of my car. The AAA dispatcher told me she was sending the fire department over and that I should step safely away from the car but to not worry.
“The car won’t, like, blow up on me will it?” I asked her.
“No, no, it won’t, don’t worry,” she kind of laughed at me.
Just then there was a loud POP—one of my front tires had burst. So had my tear ducts. I was now fully sobbing now to the AAA dispatcher.
By now, my auto inferno was the talk of the 210. Everyone driving by made sure to steer clear, but still slowed to take a look and the radios were abuzz about the sig alert1 I had caused. Even the police had arrived to direct traffic and secure the area.
Luckily for me, I had pulled over right by an on-ramp, which meant the fire department arrived easily, and they put out the fire in no time. Some of them took pity on me, an absolute different type of wreck, that they gave me several ice cold water bottles to calm me down.
Unluckily, the sig alert also meant that not only was the AAA tow truck sent to fetch me and my busted car stuck behind everyone, but so was everyone trying to get to the Eminem and Rihanna concert at the Rose Bowl that night! My bad y’all!
In an uncharacteristically kind move from the police, one officer stayed to wait for AAA with me. He even let me sit in the front seat of his cruiser, showing me the buttons for the lights, sirens, speakers and to open the trunk “where all the big guns are.”
Updating my mom via text, this is what she had to say:
Mother pls!!
Anyway, the AAA guy finally made it, and picked me and my car up. Bro was shook at what I’d done to my car, and I got to tell him the whole story as we drove through the remains of my sig alert traffic mingling with the Rihanna concert traffic.
Normally, AAA would just drop you and your car off wherever, whether it’s the shop or your own house, but the mechanic was actually a couple blocks from my work, and Mr. AAA wasn’t going to let a distressed girl in little booties walk to work alone! So after unloading the Camry’s remains, he turned around and dropped me off at the retirement home. I thanked him profusely and as I got out, he made sure to hand me his card and said that I should “hit him up soon.”
I let out a nervous “heh heh” and ran into work, breathlessly telling everyone nearby about what I had just gone through, all before clocking in and settling into the night shift.
Looking back, so much of that saga was brat: almost ditching work to be in a music video, setting my car on fire2, crying in the front seat of a police car and getting the tow truck guy’s number. Now every time Charli is mentioned, I think of how close I got to the original brat in her original brat days, of the brat future that could have been, and, of course, of the blackened remains of my beloved Toyota Camry on the side of the 210 freeway.
For non-Californians, a sig alert is when something, like an accident or a sobbing girl with her car on fire, literally stops traffic and maybe closes a lane or more.
"I Love It” by Icona Pop feat. Charli XCX anyone???
U WERE ALMOST A VIDEO VIXEN!!