A reader of this blog recently told me that the night I met the Scavo twins (Charles and Max Carver) can’t be considered a misadventure. I respectfully disagree – in my opinion the ridiculousness of the situation qualified the evening.
In any case, I’d like to share another misadventure with all of you and, this time, I hope there won’t be any dissent on whether it is, in fact, eligible for “misadventure” status.
Last night, I was invited to watch a movie in Georgetown…
Earlier in the night I partook in a Happy Hour at Urbana, a nearby hotel bar – although that description does it a great disservice. For a variety of reasons, I just don’t carry cash, instead choosing to charge my expenses. On this particular night, I happened to have just enough to pay my share and so, without thinking anything of it, I paid in cash along with everyone else… (Sometimes, it’s nice to just fit in without being difficult.)
So, I’m back home from Urbana, getting ready for Georgetown, and my first instinct is to take a cab there. Quick and simple, right? Well, it was just about that point that I realized that I had literally three dollars in cash to my name (plus some quarters I’m saving for laundry). No problem – I decided that I would simply find a cab that took credit cards and I would be all set.
As a backup, my roommate and I even looked up a bus that would take me from where I was to where I needed to be and found even better news – the bus came every 8 minutes! Everything was solved: I would simply hop onto the D6 and take it to Georgetown using my SmartTrip (a Metro card that serves as a debit card and that I had previously preloaded with money).
I calmy walked the few blocks needed to catch the bus – which, ironically, is basically right in front of Urbana – only to find that the D6 does not, in actuality, run every 8 minutes as I had thought (I don’t know what schedule my roommate and I had looked at). I had, of course, just missed the bus and the next one wasn’t scheduled to come by for another half hour.
It was onto Plan B – I waved over a cab (even that took a while – did I mention that there was a “wintry mix” of snow, sleet, and freezing rain coming down?) and asked to be taken my destination specifying I’d be paying with a credit card (sometimes I’m just too damn honest). The cab driver laughed and told me no cab would take a credit card, but he could drive me to the ATM up the street so that I could withdraw money. I politely declined.
Using my quick-thinking skills, I decided I would call my friends who lived across the street so that they could bring me down some cash. Yes, the same friends that I had at Happy Hour with and, yes, the ATM was still just up the street (although in the opposite direction). I called and no one picked so I decided not to waste anymore time and to simply walk the almost 2 miles…
Why I thought this was the best, quickest solution, I have no idea. Can I blame the two glasses of wine I had consumed earlier in the evening?
Part of the plan, I think, was to walk far enough so that I could then convince a cab to take me the rest of the way with just my three dollars. What I sorely overestimated was the number of available cabs in DC on a slippery, wet night in a residential neighborhood… I did manage to stop one cab who told me it would be $3 for me to just get in, so I kept walking.
But then, thankfully, I conjoled another cab driver who was on his way to Virginia to just let me “catch a ride” as far as I could… He was nice enough to drive me all the way “home” for free! I wanted to tell him how I really do believe in Karma (this week, anyway) but decided to just thank him and get out quickly!
So, I arrived at my intended destination at bit late, jeans soaked, sweaty and a bit worked up. But, you know, I really enjoyed that walk…
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