If Your Life is a Hot Mess, You’ll Love This Web Series

This week, I got towed. It was disorienting, but even weirder was the experience I had on the way to the impound lot. As soon as I realized my car was gone, I took to the streets of downtown LA, desperate to hop into the first taxi I could find. I did, only to learn immediately that the driver wasn’t a real cabbie. He was borrowing a relative’s cab as his own vehicle had been towed as well — for containing loads of stolen merchandise and designer purses. Meanwhile, I had not one but two Coach bags on my lap (don’t ask) and briefly worried I’d placed myself in a potentially dangerous situation. He could tell I was nervous and offered to let me smoke in the passenger’s seat, adding that I was having a rough morning and didn’t need to pay for the ride. Of course, I gave him cash for doing me a favor…and taking me to my car when he was already late for something else. You never know who’s going to make your day, and that’s the beauty of living in a big city.

It was one of the strangest situations ever, and that’s why I appreciate web series Hot Mess so much. The show, which premiered its third season on Wednesday March 5, is a reality reenactment series in which seven young performers act out the bizarre, so-weird-they-must-be-real stories of real people. Based in NYC, the series brings true stories of people all over to life in a funny, relatable way. Given my own recent scenario with the troubled but seriously warm-hearted guy driving a family member’s cab, I especially love the episode called “Mugged,” which involves a drunk girl finding common ground and friendship with her mugger. Again, it’s all so unusual that it couldn’t be made up, and it speaks true to unusual experiences of women in NYC and other parts of the country.

Featuring Boardwalk Empire actor Mat Hostetler, Orange is the New Black’s Kathryn Kates and Elementary‘s John Bolger among others, Hot Mess season three is now available online and will release a new episode every Wednesday, followed by Talking Mess, an interview with the person who lived the story depicted onscreen. They may be hot messes, but there’s something beautiful in that, and I look forward to watching more disasters unfold at the end of each week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePOecq1J9I8?feature=player_embedded

Featured image via Hot Mess