"Go downtown? I just got here." I said, thinking about grabbing a second cup of coffee from the craft service table.

Harry pulled some bills out of his wallet and stuffed them back in. "On second thought, get petty cash from Stacy, she's the PC and has the address."

I found Stacy the Production Coordinator smoking and trying to score Hollywood style with the high profile director. He had directed a Counting Crows video, but regardless, how anybody could flirt this early in the morning was beyond me.

I stood waiting for a lull in their conversation when finally I forced my presence upon them. "Are you Stacy?"

Grinning, she turned to me. "That's me, what can I do ya for?"

Oh, isn't she cute and perky. "I'm supposed to get some money and an address from you to pick up something downtown?"

As the director walked away without any recognition of me what-so-ever, Stacy's grin turned sour and I realized I had blown her morning flirtation effort. She gave me thirty dollars, handed me a receipt and a pair of earrings in the white paper bag and said, "Exchange these for the same exact pair. The address is on the receipt."

"Why are we exchanging these for the same exact pair?"

"Because we're idiots that's why. Don't ask me questions when I ask you to do something, just do it."

"Well..."

Her eyes enlarged to the size of E.T.'s "Excuse me?"

"I ask questions, that's what I do. That's what we're supposed to do, that's what we're here to do-- to ask questions."

One of her eyes twitched. "The back broke off on each of them, if you need to know so bad."

"Yes, I need to know. No matter how trivial I need to know."

"What are you, a freak or something?"

"No more than you're a freak."

"Oh, we're off to a nice start. It's going to be a long day. Now if you don't mind doing your job, will you go get the goddamn earrings? Set call is in an hour an fifteen and we'll need them, now go."

I jumped in Fran's car and headed down PCH, when I saw the 405 sign south. For some reason, I thought about Sea World. Which I thought was peculiar, because I'd never been to Sea World and never even thought about it.

Then Stacy's voice seeped its way into my brain, "...if you don't mind doing your job," "if you don't mind doing your job." I realized I did mind and I zipped across just in time to splinter off the ramp and glide onto the 405 heading south.

*****

I stood in front of the reptile tank and wondered how they had lasted so long. Like roaches, these snakes and turtles had adapted to just about anything. Was it predetermined that these creatures would be strong and exist through the ages, made small and given tough skin in order to achieve existence, or was it just a fluke that they figured out how to survive at all? Humans are getting larger and less adaptable which means more vulnerable to extinction, but then we come up with alternate means by which to exist like cloning.

I saw a nearby Sea World employee picking up trash, and I realized I had no job. In that moment, I wondered what Stacy was thinking. Car accident? Drive-by shooting?

As I turned, suddenly I felt bad.

I realized I had missed the dolphin show by 5 minutes.