12.

So I’m in Pasadena, 2am, waiting in the parking lot of some place called Pie ‘n Burger. As if rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t bad enough! Now they’ve come for pies. I’ll be frank with you, I was in a bit of a mood. It’s just…when I planned my vacation, I wasn’t planning on spending my nights sneaking out, high school abortion style, so my bodyguard wouldn’t know I’m meeting a dangerous stranger in the parking lot of Pie ‘n Burger. You know, there was a time in this country when we just ate pie and burgers. What happened to that simpler time? What’s the rush? Say “and.” “I would like a pie and a burger, please.” Is that so hard?

When the other car showed up, a woman got out and handed me a card with a name and address on it. Nick Koenig. 327 Jefferson Ave. Rancho Cucamonga. I nearly threw up. 

If you’ve ever heard of the TMZ, it’s short for the Thirty Mile Zone. The idea was that if a movie films outside of the TMZ, the studios have to put you up in a hotel for the night. Or, at least, they have to pay you more to travel. Because even those cruel, competitive, shit for brains bastards at the movie studios knew that it was unreasonable to expect someone to drive from Pasadena to Rancho Cucamonga. It’s 35 miles. It might as well be on the moon. 

I looked at this woman and said, “It was supposed to be a shoebox.” 

“What was?”

“I’m not supposed to get a card. I’m supposed to get a shoebox.” 

Then this woman looked me dead in the eyes and shrugged, “Huh.”

13.

I found a pay phone and had to call that rat bastard Roy Cohn seven times before he answered. He told me, “Nancy, you’re being hysterical. It’s a short drive. You’re there. You’re back. No one knows. What’s the problem?” I tried to explain the TMZ to him, but he wouldn’t hear it.

Everything I said, he just repeated, “It’s not that far. It’s not that far.” That’s the problem working with these closeted conservatives. They can’t handle reality. He’s not as bad as Joe McCarthy, but that’s a pretty low bar. I’ve met open fires with more self control. 

This is how you know that I am no better than you poor, little people. Because I got in my car and drove to Rancho fucking Cucamonga. No matter how big you get, there’s always someone to push you around. In this case, a mean lawyer with no morals and no eyebrows.

14. 

The house looked abandoned. The windows were boarded up and the front door was missing. I went to ring the doorbell–I wasn’t raised by wolves, you know–but there wasn’t one. I ran back to the car. And no, not because I was afraid of a house without a doorbell! I’m not as posh and out of touch as people say. I’ve been to my fair share of beach huts. I ran back because I realized that I’ve been going about this all wrong. I wasn’t running an errand. I was committing a crime. 

Now, I haven’t committed that many crimes in my life. I have people for that. So I had to turn where we all look to understand crime: the movies. 

You can laugh, but you shouldn’t. Picture a bank robber. Picture a mob boss. Picture an FBI agent. I’m sure that some image came to mind for each, but I doubt those images were of people you know. I bet they look like people you’ve seen in movies, though. Luckily, movies are pretty accurate so this hardly ever creates any problems. 

Bad guy move number one: I rolled down my window and whistled a bird call. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was hoping that someone would walk through that empty doorframe with a shoebox and I could rush back home. No such luck. I had to move on to bad guy move number two. 

I grabbed the emergency flashlight and spare pistol from the glove box and tiptoed to the window. Passing the light over the living room, I saw more crawlspace than floor. With the spirit of science in my heart, I tried an experiment. I tossed a rock through the front door and watched as it crashed through a threadbare rug. This seemed like a hint not to step foot in this house. 

So, I walked around it. I went window to window. Every room was terrifying. None of the rooms had any shoeboxes. 

Then I heard a sound. It was the shed door. 

The shed was twenty yards behind the house in a thicket of shrubby trees. The door rattled again. I scurried to the side of the shed. Whoever came out of there, I wanted to see them before they saw me. 

No one came out. 

The door rattled again, then stopped. 

After five minutes, I realized that the ball was in my court. 

My first instinct was to ask who it was, but I decided against it. Instead, I shouted, “Listen you goddamn sonofabitch! How about you come out here with your hands where I can see them? I think we need to talk.” 

Nothing. 

“Hey! I don’t know who you think you’re dealing with, but we got you surrounded. How about you come out here before we have to do something you’re gonna regret?”

Still nothing. That seemed like a bad sign, so I turned to my next bad guy move. I kicked down the door. 

Inside the shed was a raccoon the size of a microwave. As soon as the door opened, it attacked. It turned its evil little head and dove straight for my neck. I think it wanted to strangle me with its weird raccoon hands. If there is one thing Raiders of the Lost Ark gets right about Marion, it is that there is no-where on this God’s Green Earth a beautiful woman can go where someone isn’t trying to strangle her.
 
I’m not proud of it, but I threw my gun at the raccoon. I just panicked.

My throw missed. The gun hit the shed floor and shot through the wall. I don’t know much about wildlife, but I’ll tell you this for free: If you’re trying to calm down a raccoon, I wouldn’t shoot a gun near it. They seem to hate that. Luckily, I was able to jump out of the raccoon's way and race back to my car before she could catch me. Logically, I know that that raccoon is still somewhere in Rancho Cucamonga. Psychologically, though, she will be hot on my tail until the day I die.  

15.

Boy, oh boy. Where were we in the movie? 

Indiana and Marion are off to Cairo to look for the Ark. When they arrive, they realize that Cairo is flooded with Nazis. Everywhere he goes, Indiana Jones is watched and hunted, including by the world’s greatest monkey spy. This little guy doesn’t have a name, but he does have an adorable red vest and an evil owner with an eye-patch. Mr. Monkey follows our heroes, even befriends Marion, and then scurries away to whisper secrets in the ear of the evil eye-patch man. This is exactly what I want from Hollywood. For the life of me, I don’t know why Hollywood thinks I want to watch movies about godfathers and exorcists. Those guys don’t have any monkeys at all. 

Even this movie doesn’t have that much monkey in it. Only Mr. Monkey. Everyone else in Cairo is a human who is trying to kill Indiana Jones. They ambush him, but he fights them off. They chase him, but he escapes. They send their best swordsman and Jones shoots him. The whole time, only one monkey. If I made this movie, it would be a monkey Indiana Jones, a monkey swordsman, a monkey Ark of the Covenant–and me as Marion Ravenswood, Queen of Monkey Cairo. 

Tragically, some stupid humans try to poison Indiana Jones and accidentally kill Mr. Monkey instead. And then the movie tries to just move on as if everything is okay. As if they didn’t just kill the most beautiful flower to ever grace the silver screen! Why did it have to be him? Take Jones! Please! Just give me just one more day with Mr. Monkey!

16.

During all the monkey murder hullabaloo, Indiana and his Egyptian friend Sallah are trying to figure out how tall the Staff of Ra should be. They track down someone who can translate the ancient runes on the amulet and he tells them that the amulet says the staff should be six feet high. Well, technically, he says that it should be six kadams high, but then Sallah says that that is 72 inches. It’s a little convenient that kadams can be so easily converted into feet, but maybe that just means that God loves Imperial measurements. It makes sense. I know he hates the Metric System. 

Then, the translator flips the amulet over and, on the other side, it says to take back one kadam to honor God. Seems like a pretty confusing way to honor God, but I guess it makes as much sense as making your baby take a bath in front of the whole St. Patrick’s congregation. Sometimes I really don’t get that guy. 

Indiana and Sallah sneak into the archeological sight where the Nazis are digging for the ark and slip into the buried city’s map room where the ancient Egyptians carved a little replica of their town on the stone floor. Personally, I don’t think I’d find a stationary map of a city very helpful. What, I have to come back to this basement every time I want directions? I can barely use the maps at the zoo, and they have those posted every 50 feet. The Egyptians had papyrus. Write it down for me!

Not the point. 

Jones puts the Staff of Rah in a hole in the ground and, when the sun shines at the right angle, a laser shoots out of the headpiece and points to the ark’s location on the map. Once Indiana knows where to find the ark, he snaps the five foot wooden pole he was using as a staff in half. This way, it would be impossible for the Nazis to know how long the staff should be. What are they going to do? Tape the two pieces together? 

This is how you know that Indiana Jones could never make it in politics. Instead of shredding documents, he’d throw them out the window. 

But just when you think that the great Indiana Jones has finally figured it all out, the Nazi’s arrive to break things up. Indiana and his friend have to run away and, while they’re running, they bump into Marion. She’s been bound, gagged, and tied to a pole; a classic damsel in distress waiting for her white knight. Dr. Jones, ever the gentleman, leaves her behind. He’s all, “If we free you now, the Nazis will come looking for us. I have to find the ark first.” This, I must say, is the greatest act of scumbaggery any leading man could ever commit. You left your leading lady…gagged and tied up…with the Nazis! But I guess that is just what you get with moral relativism. Ugh, professors!

Oh, Marion. Poor, poor Marion. No wonder she ran to the other side of the world after breaking up with Indiana Jones. 

One time, I asked Ronnie what he would do if I was drowning in the ocean and the current was too strong for him to come and save me. He just said, “Don’t worry Ma. I’ll hop in and I’ll get you out.” That was sweet, but it kinda felt like he was ignoring my question. “What if I am out in the ocean and suddenly a storm comes? The waves are whipping wildly and the rain is pouring down. You can’t see me, but you know I’m somewhere in the water. Every time you try to come in after me, the waves throw you back onto the beach. Then what do you do?” He just smiled and said, “Don’t worry Nancy. I’m a great swimmer. And you’re my girl.” So on one hand, I know that if I ever get stuck out in the current off some Los Angeles beach, me and my husband are as good as dead. But on the plus side, it is sweet to know someone’s coming in after me.

17.
 
Since Dr. Jones left Marion behind, she’s still tied up when the evil French Archeologist arrives. He’s brought her a white dress to put on, which is a huge red flag. It’s always the biggest perverts who come with something you need to put on. I’d rather be with one of those leather clad freaks who put candles out with their butt any day. At least then you know what you’re getting into. Halfway through dinner, Mr. Leather isn’t going to accidentally call you the name of his sexy cousin who died of consumption at 14.
 
While Marion is changing into the dress, the French Archeologist is peeping at her like in that movie where the queer turns his mom into a stuffed animal.When she comes back in the dress, she sets her old clothes down on top of a sharp knife, hiding it. 

The movie really takes a moment to be like, “Hey look, there’s a knife there!” As a former pro, let me let you in on a little secret. This is a classic movie trick. Whenever somebody is going to use a weapon, they have to show you the weapon earlier in the scene. That way, when the action starts, the audience will be like, “Oh yeah, I’ve met that knife before.”

Marion gets the archeologist drunk–we already saw how good she is at drinking contests–and then she grabs the knife. As she’s backing out of the tent, she and the archeologist are both laughing. She’s even telling him that she likes him and that she hopes they’ll meet again under different circumstances. Obviously, this is an act. Another trick I learned early in my time in Hollywood is that the more you acknowledge that a man is holding you captive, the more he goes absolutely fucking mental. “What, no? I’m so glad you forced me to come out on this boat in the middle of the night. I love being where no one can hear me scream. Why do you ask, Howard?” But as she’s backing up, who’s at the door behind her but the spooky little gay Nazi from the bar. 

Marion runs from the Nazi and hides behind the French Archeologist. I’d hide, too. In terms of ranking threats, French pervert feels way safer than German psycho. The little gay Nazi sits down and says, “Now, what shall we talk about?” Guys think that sort of thing is charming, but I just find it exhausting. This isn’t Happy Days. You’re not The Fonz. We don’t need a punchline. Just threaten me already! Don’t make me feign laughter first. I’d rather just die.