(Not) Only in LA

I remember the first call from my mother back in early January. She was in Urgent Care at Kaiser Permanente in West Los Angeles, having had a heart scare, which turned out to be a muscle induced panic attack. Nonetheless, as someone with a minor heart condition, she had to wait it out there for the day.

"Jesus", she said "everyone here is wearing all these Masks because of the Coronavirus. It's a madhouse," she said. She told me her roommate was waiting outside, idling in his car, refusing to come inside the hospital to pick her up. I pictured a bunch of lunatics in my hometown wearing  scrub colored blue masks walking around the beach. "Only in LA," I said to myself, a familiar reframe about a place where insanity thrives as much as melodrama. I'd been smug in my immunity to it for years.

"What's Coronavirus, Ma?" I said, trying to stifle a grin, assuming it was just another something my mother was overreacting too. "Do we need to worry?"