Marybell: Daddy I got a terrible sunburn and hit on by a guy who is like 80 with a pot belly and bald spot but who said I need to lose 20 pounds. He said he was willing to help me if I turned the lights off.

Daddy Warbucks: That sounds terrible? What did you do?

Marybell: I ran away because I already know all about being a private dick (I run LOL Mysteries Detective Agency here in Coma–my dad says I need to remind people), which is so gross.

LA is a mystery. It seems like people become special overnight but really for women it takes a lot of throwing up everything you eat or not eating and getting into dark rooms with men that are older than your dad. It also takes A LOT of tattoos and nose rings. It also takes being whatever someone with more power than you wants you to be.

My friend Hope moved to L.A. a few months ago to become a reality TV actress or a YouTube sensation at least.

She’s working at a Starbucks and lives with four roommates in a one-bedroom apartment. But she goes out all the time (Looking hot and almost topless!! Amazing!)  and always with a different guy in LA; they call them “business men” or they work in “the business” whatever or something. They usually go to amazing restaurants with amazing food that no one is supposed to eat–Hope learned that the hard way. Guys out there have amazing cars and jobs, Hope says. The ocean is beautiful and the weather blows away our weather–winter is so gross.

And Hope is really sad.

I thought from her texts, Instagram and FaceTime convos about all the amazing times she was having that everything was going great. But when I spent time with her she mostly cried. I know! So sad.

I told her I couldn’t understand why she was so unhappy living in the happiest place on Earth.

She said the old rich guys who take her out  on dates always talk about how amazing she is and that they can talk to their friends in “the industry” about her but after every one night stand they text her they just want be friends. But they’re not friends because there’s no more talk of helping her get a real job so she can move out her cockroach apartment. In fact, Hope says she generally never hears from these friends again.

 “I went with them because I wanted to work.” Said Hope. ” And that if they cared about me once I spent time with them they would help me.”

I told Hope that’s a really special way an old man can treat you in LA (Washington, DC too!!). In Coma, if the Subway manager with two kids and a wife treated me like that because I needed a job I’d just report him like that Jared Subway Spokesman who got caught being a private dick (not the detective kind). So, really it is special to live a way in LA that no cute young woman has ever dreamed of to get a job or stay employed.

“Weekend trips with these old guys are fun,” Hope says. “But then the fun ends and I’m back here alone–except for all my roommates, who are too poor to go out anywhere.”

I told her it’s the land where dreams come true. Then she cried more. I told her no young girl in Coma would date an old guy like that even if he could take you to the fair or something because old men are kinda gross. What they have in terms of money and power comes with baggage like children, exes, cocaine habits, child support, memories from the 90s that don’t include her kind of memories- like tying her shoes on her own and 5, and what I like to call sag-age. So it’s kind of a dream come true she gets to experience that because that’s totally RARE in Coma. Young cute girls in Coma have no reason to go anywhere with men who are Dads, so not only is she in the happiest place on earth she’s in a place where lots of really young women experience something they’d never experience anywhere else on earth. How often does a twice divorced father of two have money to even take you anywhere other than Subway?

So I realized my mistake was assuming every dream was happy. It sounds like bald middle age guys have happy dreams but Hope’s dream was really sad. I believe there might be good businessmen in LA who are kind. Just like there are good managers at Subway and I hope for Hope’s sake the find more of them.

Mystery solved: Hollywood is still the land where (good and bad) dreams come true.