Now that my shoes have dried, fuck Washington DC

I try to be a good girlfriend. I really do. Somehow, it just doesn't work out. So here's the latest debacle: as usual when we make plans, our trip to the mountains for my girlfriend's birthday got rained out. She looked so sad I decided it was my job (always a bad decision)to figure something out, and talked her into going to D.C., where the weather channel did not tell us we were going to get stranded in a flood. So we drive in on Saturday, and walk six million blocks on Sunday between walking cement floors in museums which left me feeling like I'd been shot in the back, which I don't think I was because there was no blood.


Sunday night she really wanted to have dinner in the city, meaning we'd miss the last hotel shuttle from the metro, but fuck it, it's her birthday and we'll find a cab, right? As we're leaving the restauraunt, all holy hell of rain's wrath breaks loose. Puddles 3 inches deep in like 20 minutes. We struggle back to the metro, settle in and lo and behold, the driver announces the tracks are flooded and we're getting dropped off at Reagan airport. So there we are, stranded in an airport and we didn't even fucking fly. They tell us shuttle buses are coming - but they're not; the highway is shut down. Obviously, no cabs either. We wait in the metro for an hour. Then we're sent down to the sidewalk for another half an hour until the driver comes and says, no, wait somewhere else! So 100 wet, stranded, disgusted people hustle to the next spot and wait for another hour for the driver to come and say, no, go back where you were - which we do, to find out that apparently the highway did open back up, because the first shuttle is gone, full of people who flew in and deserved to get stranded at a damn airport.

An hour later, the next bus comes and they decide all 100 of us can fit on there. Not pretty. We get to an open metro stop and guess what? No one can get out. So people start diving out of the windows. The bus takes off and by then, I think this is all pretty funny but caligu-girlfriend is not taking things so well. It's like 2 a.m. and man, she gets pissy when she's tired! We get to a stop near our hotel with an Embassy Suites and I suggest getting off so we can call a cab and wait in the lobby but for some reason, she's adamant about sticking to the plan of going to our closed metro station, so I shut up. We get there and - no cabs. This is why I'm not a big fan of sticking to plans. Sometimes circumstances just don't hold up.

So this Indian couple offers us a ride but they don't know their way around. Caligu-girlfriend calls the hotel but doesn't get street names,which makes the couple nervous. Then we see - a CAB! I ask the guy for a ride, he says sure, and we get out and into his cab. But he's helping this other cab - actually, the cab's passenger - change a tire. It's 2:30 a.m. and pouring rain, and neither of them know how to change a fucking tire. The other driver is this big hopeless woman who just stood there, wetly watching. These guys took the new tire off and on like 25 times because they couldn't get it on straight, which is not that fucking hard, but I was too tired and amused to get out and help and besides, I thought they'd be insulted if this 5'1 woman got out and showed them up. So they finally get the tire changed, lo and behold, and we're on the road. Yay! hotel bound!

We pull up to the hotel and for some reason, I think to keep up hope, caligu-girlfriend had taken the hotel key out of may backpack, which I didn't see a reason for but by then I was SO not fucking with her. Well, we pull up into the parking lot and as we're getting out, this creepy guy runs up to the cab and blows out this huge cloud of pot smoke and starts talking to the driver in a very stoned manner. This freaks Caligu-girlfriend out, who gets out of the cab, hears the key drop and thinks it dropped in the parking lot. Did it? No. The cab drives off and there we are, in the pouring rain at 3 a.m. looking in puddles for a key she had actually dropped in the long-gone cab. I couldn't stop laughing. She stormed into the hotel lobby and and my usually placid-acting (there is a difference between acting like you are always calm and actually taking things in stride, trust me) girlfriend, who I had never seen blow her top, actually yelled at the desk clerk, whose eyes got real big and who quickly, silently gave her another key so we could get into our long awaited hotel room. Home at last.

Fuck DC, and somebody please remind me that next time I want to be a good girlfriend, to just buy her some flowers. They are so much easier and even my luck can't screw that up. Can it??