Now that I've grown (fairly) accustom to getting up before 11 a.m. every morning (although I miss it miss it MISS IT), I've decided that I no longer should just go home after work and hole up in my apartment every evening. I'm not one for routine, and that's putting it mildly....so getting out of both work and the apartment for a while every day seems like the other thing that [might] save my sanity (although of course it's debatable about whether I ever actually, um, had my sanity to begin with. But I digress, as usual.).
Anyway so last night was my first attempt at Being A Good Person (okay not my first attempt at that ever, but the first in DC so far), and Getting Out of the House. I had scheduled a meeting with this woman to talk about opportunities tutoring refugess through her organization after work, and the address of her organization was the same as my work, so I figured oh great, I'll just walk there! (I hate driving in DC - I've done it a grand total of once so far, and ended up driving around Dupont Circle about 52 times. It was like something out of National Lampoon's European Vacation or something. I mean, honestly, who thought it would be a good idea to build a freaking city with a bunch of wagon wheels in it? How are you supposed to have ANY idea what road to turn off of from the circles? I have no idea. I strongly believe that the people who planned Philly were much less evil than those who planned DC. Strongly believe it.)
Right. So. I realize during the day that the weather is looking vaguely threatening outside the building, although the rain had managed to hold off all day. Of course, I dont have an umbrella (ella ella), so I email the girl in the middle of the afternoon and tell her that I might not make it in, on account of rain. By the time I leave work, it's not raining, and being me, I guilt trip myself into going, even though honestly all I really want to do at that point is get back to the city before the rain begins.
I make it there and the clouds are still closed. That is not to say that it didn't take me nearly 40 minutes to walk there, since my assumption that two buildings that happen to be on the same road as each other are therefore close to each other was obviously blatently WRONG (you know what they say about assumptions. Yeah). So there I am, deep into the ghetto of Arlington (honestly, it exists!! I swear). I finally find the building, meet with the girl, realize that it's a Catholic organization, am told that they strongly encourage people to refrain from trying to convert the refugees (they have an entire pamphlet dedicated to "Evangilism and Refugees" no joke) and hear her call some other person a Sister (uhh). I'm a little creeped out, but still interested because she's not the person that I'm going to be tutoring (thank her G-O-double D).
I walk out of the building, and it's POURING RAIN. Now, I may have forgotton to mention this above, but I am wearing a White Dress. Yes. White. Entirely white. White as a...white bunny rabbit. White as a baby's butt. White as a cloud in a non-stormy sky. White.
And I don't have an umbrella.
Ever heard of wet t-shirt contests?
Yeah.
In the gheeeeetto.
In the twilight.
So I decide, why not hold this nice blue folder over my head that I was given during my meeting? Bright ideas are always coming to me like that. Uh huh.
5 minutes later, it's dripping its runny ink down my (once) white dress. And, no, it didn't look like some cool tie-dye because 1. it didn't and 2. "cool" tie-dye is an oxymoron anyway.
There are no cabs in sight.
I walk back 2 miles, and finally get to the metro, but not before I am creeped up on by several people walking by, am nearly run over in the median of a really busy road that apparently doesn't believe in cab service, am distracted and walk all the way back to the office which is a good 5 blocks PAST the metro, and get into a fight with a jerk who had the audacity to honk at me when I was crossing the street in front of him (dude you're in a caaaaaaaaaaar, I'm walking in the pouring rain, who do you think gets the right of way in that scenario? Yeah. ME.)
I'm alive, but wondering why Karma seems to be an evil old hag so much of the time...
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3 comments:
I was going to say "stop bitching, it's just rain," until I read the white dress in the ghetto thing. That kind of sucks. However, a more positive person would only see that as a roadblock.
Didn't you used to live in Chicago? I think our grid system is the greatest, as it's super easy to get around, even in the suburbs. Very similar to NY, but the grid stretches pretty far away from the city. I live in Monee (35 miles south) and we're still on the grid.
i felt totally guilty that i was even the slightest bit put off because, for god's sake, i was going to see if i could help people who were coming out of MUCH MUCH worse situations than i have ever been in [or hopefully will ever be in].
That being said, most of my bitching is just for dramatic purposes, not because i'm actually crying about it/being negative.
I understand. I still think it was a horrible situation for a young lady to be in. If it was me, I wouldn't care if my underpants showed through my all white clothing, but I'm a guy.
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