Going South on the 405

A­ demonic stretch of arterial suburban sprawl that hijacks souls. Between the hours of crawling and creeping, a proletarian pipeline pumps labor cells toward a plastic dream: world domination via celebrity apprenticeship. Mercedes zooms past Mexican landscaping business; swank sunglasses brooding at rusty lawnmowers. Vanity mirrors trace red lipstick to the tune of hurried honking – an orchestra of sexist sentiments in the rearview. The clunky Corolla in her J.C. Penney discount rack watches longingly from the wrong lane as BMW with the sparkling conversation in her ear whips past in the right. And muted behind safety glass, a stretched and spray-tanned face laughs wildly, bleach-blonde abilities breaking away from the pack. BMW gets ahead; Corolla watches bitterly. Across a double-yellow ocean of longing, the whip and whimsy of Prius glides past, ass in the air, flaunting environmental care. The radios, all tuned to the same station, blare theme music for the boxcar shuffle. And the zombie cells do their horizontal leapfrog dance, bottlenecking toward the grand promise of a wide-open road ahead.