Last weekend, we went to Orange County and, I’m going to be honest, Orange county is not my favorite place on earth. We stayed with friends in Silverado Canyon, which is like a little sliver of the real world that someone scooped out and deposited in Southern California. There are trees, lemon trees, actually, and neighbors talk to each other and exchange eggs for oranges and the general store will open specifically for you if you really, really want ice cream at 8 o’clock at night.

Silverado is nice. Then there’s the rest of Orange county. Macky was doing a training workshop in Laguna so I volunteered to take the car in for an oil change and a tire alignment. That was when things went downhill. To make a really long and boring story short, don’t go to Big 0 tires. They suck. And I’m usually pretty charitable in situations like this so when I say they suck, you can take that seriously. They really, really suck. And you know what sucks even worst? Their wifi. If you expect me to sit around nice and politely while you screw me out of 500 dollars, you better not have Facebook and Instagram blocked on your wifi. I mean, seriously. I ended up walking two miles to find functional internet, which while not a long walk by any means, was an extremely unpleasant one because walking anywhere in Orange county immediately labels you as “suspicious.” People slowed down their cars to stare at me and children peered out their windows looking frightened. I felt like an ogre.

After six hours of this, I finally reclaimed the car, paid an absolutely absurd amount and drove back to Laguna Beach, enduring the singular torture that is driving anywhere in Southern California. Laguna Beach is slightly more human-being friendly, as long as you’re okay with paying $1.50/hour for parking and can hold your bladder indefinitely. After 45 minutes of looking for somewhere to pee where I didn’t have to purchase a $400 pair of boots, I decided to go watch the sunset on the beach. Soothing waves, soft sand and stellar colors–clearly this would be a cure for my growing hatred of Orange County. I settled down on a nice bench and Instagrammed some sunset photos. Then I put my phone away, took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. This was when someone started shouting “Does anyone know CPR?!?!” which has to be one of the least relaxing phrases possible.

I shot up and rushed over, along with a photographer who had been setting up his tripod to capture the sunset. We were greeted by a strange scene. The woman who was shouting was middle-aged with frosted and permed blonde hair. She was waving a take-out container full of enchiladas and looking hysterical. Two other women were crowded around a bench where a gray-haired woman was slumped over, unconscious. Or maybe dead, I thought. Is she dead? One of the women was shaking her and screaming “Dee, come back to me!” The photographer whipped out his cellphone and dialed 911.

“Yes, I have an emergency, a woman is unconscious, we don’t know what happened, we’re on the beach, no I don’t know what street, does anyone know what street this is?” No one knew so he sprinted off, cursing, to find a street sign.

I stared at the slumped over woman and wondered if I should start CPR. Yes, I kind of know CPR. I’ve been certified a few times. I’ve done lots of CPR on stuffed dummies. But never on a real person. I remember vaguely that you have to break a person’s ribs to do it properly and I didn’t want to crush this poor woman, especially if her heart was actually beating fine anyway. And let’s be honest, I can’t even find my own pulse most of the time. Besides her friend was still leaning over her and shouting. The woman with the blond perm was now back to eating her enchiladas.

“Does she have any medical conditions?” I asked. The woman stared at me.

“No,” she said, like the question was offensive. “She was just drinking her lemonade and WHAM.”

I was flummoxed. An allergic reaction maybe? But her face didn’t seem swollen. I debated shoving the friend out of the way so I could get a better look and do, well, do what exactly I was not sure. Something heroic, probably. But I decided against it and instead chose option B, stand there like a dumbass. This turned out to be the better option because seconds later the woman sat up, her eyes snapped open and she started shouting, “What the fuck is going on?” We all stared. This was when the photographer returned, still on the phone with 911. “They’re on their way,” he said, breathing heavily.

“No-NO AMBULANCE. I DON’T WANT AN AMBULANCE,” shouted the woman. “I’M FINE.”

The poor photographer nearly jumped out of his skin but then dutifully relayed this information to the operator. “Do you at least want a policeman to come by and make sure you’re okay?”

On this, all four women adamantly declined. “No, absolutely not.” “NO POLICE.” “No, no, no.” The photographer shrugged and put away the phone. The woman who had recently been unconscious pulled her hair back and said “No I just have this problem where I fall asleep sometimes.”

“Oh yeah,” said the permed woman through a mouthful of enchiladas, the one who had so recently looked at me like I was insane for suggesting the possibility of preexisting medical conditions. “Maybe this had something to do with the narcolepsy.”

Oh right, the narcolepsy, forgot about that, couldn’t see how it could possibly have anything to do with my friend randomly passing out. I gaped at her.

“I just thought it was because she was a little buzzed,” the permed woman said with a wink.

Buzzed on what, I wondered as I walked back to the car. Alcohol? Marijuana? Heroin? What is it, exactly, that rich middle-aged Orange County women do for fun? I sat on the sidewalk by the car and waited for Macky. People looked at me like I was an ogre. Whatever, Laguna, whatever.