Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

~ Cowboy Proverb

Bars, Cars and a Chick from Mars

We have seen how exquisite timing is a key factor in the synchronicity that results in our desired life events, but what are we to think when exquisite timing is also involved in events that are not so desirable and are completely unexpected? Do we assume that we awoke on the wrong side of the bed that morning? Or based on what I have related so far, can we assume that there are always hidden blessings and life lessons to be learned in these strange occurrences? Only when they are played out completely can we look for the answers and lessons. One thing I believe for certain…somewhere related to the effect is a cause that is buried somewhere.

Here’s one such occurrence – or rather series of connected occurrences you might find amusing. It deviates somewhat from my entrepreneurial theme, but since it centers around my office building…

It involves a gym rat (moi), a club rat, a popular television court show, a celebrity who is famous for…well, being famous, and a fired up young attorney chomping at the bit for his first challenge. A very special cast of characters that you can only find…here in L.A - and in Marilyn’s true tale of synchronicity and guidance…

One evening in 1989, I decided to go to the gym – I usually worked out with weights in the evening. Only on that night I had taken my car keys, but had left my complete set of keys at home in a handbag. In other words, I did not have my resident key with me. I was living with someone at the time and he had gone to Orange County on business and wasn’t expected home until late. I decided I would just drive to my office (the suite in the Century City highrise) and find paperwork to do until Ron got home. I left a message and asked him to call me when he returned.

He finally called to tell me he was home. I was finishing up some work, so I stayed a bit later and it was well after midnight when I decided to leave the building. Now, the Century Plaza Towers, the highrise office towers, were adjacent to the ABC Entertainment Center, which housed the Shubert Theatre, a movie theatre, numerous shops and restaurants and a nightclub called “20/20”. Both the towers and entertainment center shared the same huge parking structure with their own entrance/exits, but that late at night, there was only one parking exit open in the underground facility.

When I reached the parking exit, all lanes were lined with cars with people who had left the nightclub. I was stuck in one lane and could only wait until the cars ahead paid. I had a “key card” which would give me automatic and quick exit from the monthly tenant lane, but my key card was at home in my handbag along with the keys and any cash. This in itself was very unusual, since I almost always kept the key card in my car. I don’t recall why I had put it in my purse.

So I patiently waited until the drivers ahead paid. Finally, I pulled up to the booth, told the attendant that I was a tenant in the building, gave him my name and suite number, told him that I did not have my key card with me, and asked him to open the gate. He then left the booth to go to the parking office to verify my tenancy. I couldn’t believe it. Cars were impatient to leave the garage and horns started honking, but the attendant had disappeared. I was sitting there in my car with the gate down in front of me, unable to do anything. I had been a tenant in the building for several years. I was dressed in gym attire with no make up on -certainly didn’t look like a night clubber. And people behind me were getting very upset from waiting. But the attendant was out of sight.

Suddenly, a young woman, a passenger with others in the car behind me, angrily approached my car, slammed her fist with great force on the roof of my car, spewed profanities and told me to move my *#!&! car. I told her the gate was down and there was nothing I could do (which was obvious). She then reached into my window, across my lap and attempted to grab my keys to start the car. She was going to try to crash it through the barricading gate. She was very young, with heavy makeup, trendy nightlife clothing and a hat. And she was very, very high or drunk. Needless to say, I was stunned.

I pushed her out of my window and closed the window. She went back to her car with her friends. I then got out of my car and yelled for security – security officers were always around in the building. Except at that moment. Suddenly I heard a voice from afar warning, “Get back in your car!” I did, and locked the door. Miss Club Rat was coming back for me.

I was shaken. I sat there until the attendant returned. He didn’t say a word…he just raised the gate so I could drive through.

I was too unnerved to drive at that point and I pulled over to the side of the curb, still in the parking garage. Oh, I forgot to tell you that the parking office was right there just a few yards from the booth where I was trapped. A few yards! They had security cameras and they could also see directly from their office what was going on in the parking garage. And yet during that whole episode, no one came out to intervene or to help. The only thing that happened was when that person yelled for me to get back in my car.

As I was parked there collecting myself, another young woman approached my car. She was one of the passengers in the car with Miss Club Rat. She looked very sweet and came up to the window and asked if I was all right. She was obviously concerned, had seen me pull over, and made the driver stop the car so she could see if I was okay. I thanked her and asked if she would give me her friend’s name.

She said she couldn’t do that, but she would give me her name and phone number. She didn’t want to rat on her friend, Miss Club Rat, but she did what she felt was right and gave me her own contact information (I think she knew that it would eventually lead to the trail).

I spent the next hour in the parking office speaking with the night manager and hearing every excuse in the book why they couldn’t come to my rescue during the altercation. The best excuse I remember was they told me had had guns pulled on them in the past, and they couldn’t take a chance in case the offender had a gun. P-l-e-a-s-e! The manager told me that he was the one who yelled for me to get back in my car.

They couldn’t intervene to help a tenant because THEY might have a problem? In the best area of town, in the most prestigious highrise office building in the city, with hundreds of people in the garage witnessing – they couldn’t even call security to come to the garage to help? All they could do was watch? Two security men did show up eventually – after it was all over.

I finally left, stopped at an emergency room to get my hand checked and to have proof of the assault. When Miss Club Rat had forced herself into my window, she had pushed my hand so hard to get to my keys that my hand was bruising and slightly swollen. It was nothing serious but I had a medical report to prove the incident.

The most amazing part though was that this somewhat slight person had hit the roof of my car with such force that she dented it! I had a large sturdy car – a Chrysler Fifth Avenue – and she managed to put a big fist dent right above the driver door.

The next day I filed a detailed police report in West Los Angeles and gave them the name and phone number of Miss Club Rat’s friend…

To be continued...

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