January 1, 2020 21 min to read

Episode I: Disaster

The day is December 4, 2019.

It’s around 9PM but my body feels like it’s midnight after a full day of traveling. We had just arrived at our place for the next few weeks, it was conveniently located on Pasadena Ave near downtown LA.

The stairs creaked with each step I took. The hallway was lit by a lonely light bulb at the top of the narrow staircase.

Our guide was a little, old Latina woman by the name of Cristina. She walked us to the first room on the right.

As I walked into the room & the little old latina lady cut the lights on, what I saw surprised me.

All three of us were silent. Cristina was waiting for some kind of a response.

The first thing I noticed was the room was way too small for 2 people & smelled like sweet citrus. The bed took up more than half of the space. There was a small table & a microwave taking up the rest of the room.

The only source of ventilation & natural light was a tiny window directly opposite the door, on the other side of the bed. Next, there was only one bed, a lightly stained, off-white comforter, & nowhere to place our suitcases.

I looked around for a bathroom… The only one on this floor was shared.

It looked nothing like the Expedia ad. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach, trying to hold back my disappointment. I also knew Chris was going to freak out - he trusted me to book a proper place to stay.

Before I could downward spiral, something happened…

I saw a little flicker in my left peripheral. Huh?

I took a few steps in its direction. An old, yellow wooden table & a chair blocked my path.

Stepping over the rickety chair, I reached the spot & bent over to inspect the linoleum floor.

Suddenly, another flicker! This time it was so close to my face I jumped back in surprise, HUUUH?

Cristina rushed forward with a concerned look on her grandmotherly face. She pounced on the thing, caught it & lifted it up.

Revealing her palm, she was RELIEVED to say,

“Oh? Es only a Cucaracha” 😄

Chris & I looked at each other like HELLLL NAHHHHH.

I booked the place on Expedia last week & it was literally the cheapest spot I could find. We were on a really tight budget so I only rented it for 2 weeks. This would buy us enough time to find another (preferably free) place to stay for the remainder of the 3-week business trip.

The rental was conveniently located just east of DTLA & looked perfect on Expedia.

In comparison to the ad, it looked more like this…

Anyhow, we stormed out of the building, telling Cristina we would not stay. I told her not to charge my card.

As we entered my car, I quickly went about calling Expedia to cancel the reservation. I couldn’t trust any business in Los Angeles with money, I had to make sure the hotel wouldn’t charge me.

I was placed on a “brief hold for the next customer service representative”.

Little ol’ Cristina came knocking at Chris’ window, her huge smartphone illuminating her face in the dark of the night. She was clearly on the phone with someone.

I cracked open the window just enough to hear her say, “There is charge. No cancel. Stay.”

Chris told me to hit the gas & so we drove away from her. Reaaaaaal fast.

We drove a few blocks West when I finally heard a voice on the line. A soft-spoken man named Princeton answered & pleasantly asked how he could help me tonight.

I told him I need to cancel my reservation RIGHT NOW & issue a refund.

Princeton looked into our reservation & hesitantly said,

“It looks like the payment has already gone through, you were supposed to check in today, correct? The hotel’s refund policy is no refunds on cancellations made less than 2 weeks in advance.”

I booked a week ago… I had no chance to be in the refund window.

Annoyed, I did my best to make my case calmly with him about how the place was a scam.

Nothing from my passionate pleading inspired his sympathy; Princeton was as cool as an artificial intelligence customer service rep.

Finally, I asked him what our options.

“What we (Expedia) can do is contact the owner & see if they’ll make an exception to their policy. We’ll send an email to update you within a business day.”

When I say we were on a tight budget, I mean I was ready to eat one meal a day for the next 5 weeks - OR until we completed the mission & close a round of financing for our events startup called Ethos.

Breathe. Slow down. Think.

Didn’t work. My mind is racing. I can’t accept this reality, there’s no way I can lose this money over such a stupid mistake. Look at the situation clearly!!

Hmm… Well, there’s no way Expedia will actually harass the property owner to refund the money they already took. What else can we do?

Chris had an idea - and it depended entirely on the property manager being in a charitable mood.

SO we rushed back to the property to try our luck with Cristina in person. After speeding off on her, I really hoped she wasn’t mad. I felt bad doing it.

She opened the gate for us & Chris calmly asked her to refund the amount since the room was totally false advertising & not big enough to accommodate two.

She looked at us both for a moment, put her index finger up & walked away.

I looked at Chris. I bet he could see the concern bleed from my eyes in that moment haha. He was stone cold & focused.

She came back a minute later, phone in hand & was calling someone. This was probably the same person she was on the line with earlier.

They spoke for a couple of minutes in Spanish. I could tell Cristina was describing the situation to this person.

I could hear the other person snapping back at her for “messing this up”.

Chris asked if it was her boss, she nodded in response. He asked for the phone. Cristina was happy to get off the line & handed it to him; she had her fill of being chewed out.

So this is the person who took our money huh? We’re getting somewhere. I was anxious in anticipation.

Chris started the conversation by calmly stating our situation. Then he went silent. The boss was speaking & I couldn’t hear a thing.

Since I couldn’t hear, I turned to Cristina, the little ol’ lady, & thanked her for connecting us to the boss. Her response was a very sweet smile & in broken English she expressed, “I understand what you’re going through, I can’t refund but that’s why I want to help you with the boss. Let’s see what she says.”

To my disbelief, she took a neutral stance in the situation & even leaned a little towards our side. I felt a genuine connection with her at that moment. She felt like a grandmother to me & I regretted driving off on her like that earlier. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to bother her one bit, phew. Huge load lifted off my chest - NEVER doing that to someone again.

At this point, I felt Chris get serious & raise his voice on the phone. It sounded like the boss was giving him some “you know our policy” bullshit. It wasn’t fair, but at the same time, I understand that they’d be out money too. They were in a heated argument now.

The boss didn’t budge; felt like the conversation was going nowhere for a brief moment.

So Chris offered up the idea for HALF the refund. Compromise? Genius.

This is the art of negotiation in action folks.

Suddenly, he thrusts the phone into my hands; the idea being that a new voice would throw them off balance.

He’s more of a hothead than I am. I tend to be really soft-spoken & it turned out to be helpful in this situation to cool the boss down.

I said, hello? On the other line, the boss sounded like a middle-aged, professional woman with way too much on her mind to be dealing with this right now. She spoke excellent English.

I gently reaffirmed our stance on the room & policy & kindly asked her to refund half.

She sighs a heavy breath of air and just says,

“I’ll look into it & that’s all I can do right now. Come back later. Bye.”

She hangs up. One part of me was in shock. This is America, cash rules everything around me. Scam or be scammed?

All I know is the night turned out a nightmare when it settled in how bad I messed up with the hotel I booked; I could have been more careful. I could’ve been more thorough. I could’ve communicated better. I shouldn’t have been so careless…

No more time for this tonight, we were at our limits in both hunger & exhaustion.

We got to an overly priced hotel room in Glendale, California around 11pm.

The happiest moment of my night came with the 3 bites I managed to take out of a soggy 6” sub. I can’t really eat when my mind is racing like this.

I spent the rest of it trying to channel my anxiety into a constructive outcome & plan.

I finally passed out at 6am.

9AM. Thursday December 5, 2019 - DAY 1

OK. Today is a big day. I jumped out of bed as if my 3 hours of sleep were a senzu bean & I’m beaming with anxiety-driven adrenaline.

I’m taking it upon myself to fix all these mistakes.

I resolved not to eat (or spend money on myself) until I figured out a living situation.

Here’s what I came up with last night:

1. Message as many people on rental sites as possible until one of them allows me to check out the room before I pay. Absolutely no time for mistakes now.

2. Visit, call, text Cristina as many times as it takes to get our money back. The last thing she told me was that she’d call me when she hears from the boss again.

3. Make sure to wire money from our US business account to Canada in order to pay our team. This was extremely important to do on time.

First thing’s first, I dropped Chris off at the Mint Room for a session nearby. He was meeting a few potential team members & investors for Ethos at the Mint.

After this, it’s GO TIME! I couldn’t tell ya how many messages I sent while driving that day but every. single. second. counted.

I felt like if I missed one beat that it would all fall apart.

I was clinging to the present moment with a focus I’ve never manifested before. I even realized that I had ZERO time to be anxious; swallowed it all & replaced it with one thought: MUST FIX.

It was survival mode.

It was a classic sunny day in Los Angeles; clear skies & a warm breeze. No humidity.

Beautiful mountains surrounded me. This was a pleasant contrast from Toronto: dreary, chilly & wet when I left.

I hardly took notice of it all though.

Traffic was tragic as usual so my entire day was spent driving. Our bank was in the far East LA area, about an hour’s drive from the Mint Room.

While juggling safe driving & convincing people to let a stranger (me) visit their homes before I book; one conversation stood out among the rest. The lady had a very lovely home & texted me intelligently.

Wary from last night’s experience as I was (& it definitely showed in my messages), she seemed to understand my situation. She wouldn’t let me check out the place (for her safety) but she did offer an upgraded room, a second bed & mentioned she was an event planner.

To top it off, the price was right & I could stay tonight.

At this point, I was in the bank talking to the manager of my corporate account. Between questions, I would reply to the owner of the house on VRBO (it’s like Airbnb).

A random obstacle appears.

My account manager at the bank needed an address on file to send me mail. It was for my new business debit card. Except, I didn’t have anywhere that she could reliably send it to…

At the same time, I couldn’t tell her that my company and I didn’t have a physical location in California anymore; that was a requirement for us to operate in the state & keep the bank account.

It was now or never…

I switched on my phone, pulled out Chris’ business bank card & entered the digits into VRBO; all while I stalled the banker.

My gut told me to just book the place immediately & uncover the address.

Within a couple of minutes, my purchase was confirmed & I received the new address!!

I casually gave it to her as if I had lived there for several years: 506 San Luis Rey Road, Arcadia, CA 😄

Remember this address.

The woman at 506 immediately messaged me with congratulations & tried calling to welcome me.

In one action I managed to get us a nice place to stay within our budget as well as preserve our bank account. All my other business at the bank was smoothly executed shortly after.

Side Note - everyone here is exceptionally sweet & friendly. They really, genuinely care. Get you some private banking, it’ll change your life - trust me.

Anyways…

IT FELT SO GOOD. SUCCESS. VICTORY. WIN WIN WIN WIN.

OK back to the drawing board, AKA the car.

Two goals achieved, one more to go. I’m breathing much easier now.

Still a little tense in anticipation of how I’m going to handle the situation at Pasadena ave; but OVERALL I feel a lot better.

Getting our refund has been the most important thing on my mind all day; without it, we’d really struggle these next 5 weeks.

I forgot to mention; I’m driving a mid-2000’s hardtop Ford Mustang coupe. Silver in colour. Automatic because it’s a rental. It was the only vehicle my go-to rental company had at the time & came for the same price as anything else.

So there I sat, broke & stylish. At any given moment I could look around & catch a glimpse of at least 2 other Mustangs; it was like, the most American thing you could drive. At least I wasn’t alone LOL.

I realized right then that I didn’t get any calls from Cristina today, so I rang her. Three tries, no answer.

I’m back to focus from my momentary reflections. Pressure was on again.

My only option was to pay her a visit.

Switched on the ignition & re-entered the mid-afternoon sea of traffic. The GPS said 80 minutes to Pasadena Ave.

I tried listening to music during the drive but my thoughts were so loud I decided to just ride out in silence. I arrived there at around 4:30pm to find Cristina at the same spot as the night before.

She had bad news: her boss was hit by a car this morning. She’s in the hospital right now.

Karma..?

Cristina could read the disappointment on my face. I guess her grandmotherly instinct kicked in because she said, “no worry. I am calling her every day. Come back again, OK? I will try, I will call you.”

She was doing her best to make a case for us.

Swimming in my thoughts, I made my way back to the car again. I saw that a new email from Expedia showed up. This must be the status update on the call they made to get us refunded. I eagerly checked & here’s the actual email:

Expedia didn’t help at all; they seem to have a hands-off policy when it comes to payments.

My morale deflated as I read through the email. I took a huge breath followed by a hard exhale (read sigh). I do this when the pressure gets to me, it looks like a one breath hyperventilation to people who witness it hahaha.

I was on such a roll with 2 out of 3 accomplishments. I wanted it all, I needed redemption but life just slapped me in the face at that moment.

It’s moments like these that make me realize how deeply my self worth is tied to my ability to get things done & produce results - or, in other words, be useful.

What else but self-preservation could cause such an intense reaction in my body?

Subconsciously, failure is synonymous with annihilation. All the stress hormones raging through my veins shook my hands & caused an irregular breath; the epicenter, my solar plexus. It was a nauseatingly familiar feeling I felt as a child. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like this.

But hold on. I really don’t like this feeling. Quick, open your eyes, look around you. What do you see? Are you in any danger?

I see palm trees. I feel a cool breeze accompanying the view of the sunset on sunset blvd. Cars driving by, big buildings & people walking on the sidewalks minding their own business.

I’m in NO DANGER. Calm down. Take deep breaths. Still yourself, be present, get out of your head & feelings for a minute. Rule of thumb, you need to be calm before you’re allowed to think lol.

I felt peace slowly seep into me. I soaked in the safety of the present moment.

Right now, right this second, I am OK. I’m just sitting in this car. It looks pretty outside. I’m actually really lucky to be here in Los Angeles, it’s incredible.

Exhaaaale.

Now, slowly, it’s time to think objectively & plan. I’m back in the game.

OK, what’s the situation?

All is not lost, I’m not giving up. There’s still hope. I can’t do anything about it right now though… What I need is a change of perspective on this. How else can I see the situation?

Hmm.. Well, one way is looking at today’s accomplishments:

• First of all - I successfully completed all that was needed at the bank; ensuring my team would get paid on schedule & we would have the capital to keep on moving. This is easier said than done - the US banking system is very old school & bankers are trained skeptics. I’ve experienced a million issues with Bank of America & Wells Fargo in the past (I’m considered a “non-resident alien” so they’re kind of paranoid) #whatareyoudoingwithallthoseamericandollarsincanada
• I managed to get us a place to stay tonight - this is HUGE. The home looked neat/clean, the landlord seemed really cool & worked in the events industry so there was a potential business connection coming out of it, & it was also perfectly located. Most importantly it was within budget!
• Got in contact with Cristina - didn’t receive a yes or a no directly from the boss & I wasn’t going to stop until I made my case with her personally to some outcome. I felt good about this determination; it brought out a side of me I’ve never really had growing up

As I walked myself through the positives I could feel everything slow down even more.

I DID manage to solve a lot today & the journey is only just beginning. I actually have time to solve this.

My shoulders & neck relaxed and I raised myself up to better posture in the fabric bucket-seat of the mustang.

Thinking back, I already expected that Expedia wasn’t going to be much help… I had to take the matter even more into my own hands and follow up with the boss after she’s out of the hospital.

Maybe… Just maybe… She feels charitable after a brush with death. I surely would. This little hope is all I had to hold onto & tightly I held.

All I can do is wait & see early next week.

Patience. Exhale.

OK, I know what to do now. & I can’t do it right now so there’s no use in worrying about it. I’ll revisit this situation in my thoughts/feelings when it becomes relevant next week.

With this plan, I felt more confident & saw the mental space open up to allow myself to daydream about my new place tonight & a good night’s rest.

I picked up Chris from the Mint in Glendale & we arrived at the house on 506 San Luis Rey road, Arcadia around 8pm.

It was a cool, dark night in the neighborhood situated at the foothills of the Los Angeles National Forest. There was an otherworldly silence to the area, almost no artificial light pollution (no street lights), & surprisingly peaceful for an LA suburb.

I was met at the front door by a middle-aged woman of East Asian descent. She was about 5’2” in height with a slender figure & long, jet-black hair. She looked as though we just woke her up.

She greeted us warmly & showed us to our room down the hall and to the right; where I found two clean beds as promised. With the bonus of a clean private bathroom & access to a kitchen, I knew this was a big win for us both. Phew.

It was at this time I ate my first actual meal since I left home.

P.S.

Hey! Thank you for reading. This is the very first post of the adventure & it’s one part of a several episode series that’ll take you through the twists & turns of what happened over the month of December 2019.

How do you cope with stress & anxiety?

What do you do to take the pressure off?

What would you have done in my situation…?

What are your thoughts! Leave a comment below & let’s get a discussion started. Maybe your experience will help another reader who’s going through the same thing. Mental health awareness is🔥