Hippie Road Trip; part two

During our first day in New York, Kiva's mom had made it clear that she didn't want that dirty hippie staying at her house. So Kiva made a few calls, and got one of her friends to put up this dirty hippie for a few days.

Her friends apartment on the West Side looked a lot like The Kramden's apartment from the 1950's, that had been redecorated by some homeless person. One thing is for sure, Alice hadn't cleaned it lately. I say, if you are a guest, you shouldn't complain about your accommodations, so I didn't. I didn't even complain when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, and found myself covered with cockroaches, I just flipped on all the lights and screamed a lot. The next night, prepared with a can of ‘Raid‘, I rolled out my sleeping bag on the living room/kitchen floor and sprayed the carpet, until it was soaked, in a defensive circle around me. The smell was awful, but it did cut down on the roaches.

Another fact of life in New York is alternate side parking, meaning you have to move your car every day to the opposite side of the street or it gets towed. On the second morning, my host asked if I had moved my car the night before. when the realization of what he had just asked me sank in, I got up and ran down to the street. It was gone. I learned another fact of life about New York that day, you can run into famous people almost anywhere. While I was ransoming my car from the impoundment yard under the West Side Highway, I was standing in line directly behind Elliot Gould, who had just been in the Oscar winning movie Mash. He was ransoming out his 1971 Gremlin, which he assured me was a fine automobile. I'm sure the Gremlin was nice, but I thought a big star like him would at least be driving a Matador.
To be continued...