Within a week, I began a short-term internship at a church in Pasadena.  Older than all the other interns by a good five years or more, I was overqualified. But it was a way to get my foot in the door in the big-wide world of Los Angeles. And I wanted to learn from this community of believers and influential leaders.

It was a season for memory-making.  Everything was new.  I was eager to experience what I could.  I might have been the only person in LA willing to drive from the Inland Empire to Malibu just because I could.  I remember chatting excitedly with the Verizon employee getting my new LA number and he smirked, “You’re not from around here, are you?”  Was it that obvious?

My roommates and I just went to The Fray concert in Hollywood, still on a high that we just met Isaac Slade by chance after the show, we agreed to cruise The Boulevard.  At a stop light, I turned to the car next to me–politely smiling and nodding, as any courteous Midwesterner would do.  The driver smiled and rolled down his window, “Pull over.”  Yeah, right.  I drove on.  Simultaneously rolling to the next light, he waved us over again.  Always game for a good story, I was curious.

The stranger got out of his hair salon decal-covered car.   Seriously, what’s the worst that could happen with THIS guy?  He announced, “You have fabulous hair!” This was not the greeting I expected.  “I do hair for Bono,” he continued. Okay, now we’re talking.  That’s amazing!  He gave me his card and disappeared.

Pleased with yet another LA story under my belt, I drove away, my head haughtily held high.  A few moments of silence slipped by, then my roommates confessed, “Cindy, he didn’t say Bono.  He said porno.”