Ranter: College girl in black tights and sunglasses, shouting into her iPhone

Location: 21 Choices yogurt shop at Jefferson & Hoover, near USC

Time: 4:30 p.m. last Saturday

Topics Covered: The dangers of spoken agreements; Los Angeles rents; multiculturalism as an inconvenience; the differences between South L.A. and the suburbs; the way renegotiations lead to further renegotiations.

Does Rant Include Advice on Whom You Should Not Fuck With: No, but the specter of being fucked with haunts it.

The Rant:

[College Girl paces anxiously across patio between Starbucks and the yogurt shop. She speaks with great intensity.]

College Girl: I'm not taking it anymore. I can't trust you people. Every time we reach an agreement – a verbal, oral contract – I think, okay, we're set, this time it's different. But then you renege. You just change things, and depending on who I'm talking to the deal is always different. You can't change a contract!

[College Girl sighs loudly while listening.]

No, that is unacceptable. You people are going to have to do better than that. We settled on $900, and that's it for me!

[College Girl listens, rolling her eyes even though she's by herself.]

Mom, any cheaper than that, and it won't be safe. And I'll be way far from school. You want me walking through–

[College Girl listens.]

They didn't sneak in to the neighborhood! It's their neighborhood already, and there's nothing we can do about that! And even your big nine hundred isn't going to get me someplace like home!

If you people keep changing the deal, maybe I'll change it, too! How about this. Anything less than $900, I get a car.

[College Girl listens and then gets sarcastic.]

You know, I would think that parents would be more concerned about the safety of their daughter. But what do I know? I'm young and careless and —

[The mother is now loud enough that her voice hisses across the patio.]

Justify away, mom. You just justify away.

[College girl hangs up and enters the yogurt shop.]