Welcome to L.A. Fuck you!

When some people first move to Los Angeles, they are greeted by a bright sun shining down warm comfort upon them and a gentle breeze that whispers, "Come hither, traveler, for this is the land of dreams become manifest."

But when my girlfriend and I moved here last year, all we got was a hearty "Fuck you." We didn't see the sun for months (June gloom? The hell is that?). And we lived in a crappy Koreatown neighborhood where there was a real-live police raid on the crack house across the street (every night an episode of "Cops"!).

Those were hard times.

One day, while reading through the want ads and crying, I saw this: "Help an infertile family. We'll pay $5,000 for your eggs." My girl couldn't stand the thought of one of her "babies" being out there and not being part of its life. But me... Well, that was the first time I ever wished I had ovaries.

One day we went to Ralph's on 3rd and La Brea, where all the skinny girls with cell phones shop for tofu. In line, a lady in an expensive suit (probably an agent or producer) bitched out the cashier over some stupid thing and stormed out.

Later, we were walking through the parking lot, when an SUV the size of a battleship roared up behind us and almost squashed my girlfriend. She barely leapt out of the way in time. I saw the psycho lady snarling from the driver's seat as the car sped away.

My girl, homesick and stressed out, broke down in tears. First we move 1,000 miles from home, then we have to live in a neighborhood where even the rats carry guns, and now someone nearly ran her down! Truly, this city hated us.

I tried my best to comfort her in our car, wondering all the while If I'd made the biggest mistake of my life moving us out here. Then I noticed we had too many grocery bags.

"What's with all the fancy sausage and cheese?" I asked, rummaging in a bag.

"What cheese?" she asked through sobs.

There was Irish cheese and Danish cheese and French cheese (stinky!). There were crispy exotic vegetables like leeks. And fancy dancy crackers made for caviar. I even found succulent Italian sausages, thick as Camryn Manheim's haunches.

"Oh, my God, these aren't our groceries," my girlfriend said.

"Then whose...?"

The psycho in the SUV, she stormed off without her groceries and the cashier gave them to us.

My baby laughed through the tears, and that night we feasted like Hollywood agents at a cocktail party.

The moral of the story? Yes, L.A. will try to crush you under it's wheels, but every now and then it throws cheese and crackers your way.

And don't piss off cashiers.