DC, You Are REALLY Trying my Patience! (But You're SO Cute!)

To live in our nation's capital is to embrace the art of waiting.  We as a people pretty much queue up for everything around here.  And not even for spectacular, awesome-pants stuff, like hot apple pie or a REALLY good deal on slacks.  That kind of on line waiting  is SO suburbs.

Nope, here in town waiting in line is mostly reserved for the overwhelmingly mediocre.  Which got me a-thinkin'.  What's the worst thing to wait for?

Without any more ado, here is my top 5 list.  Argue with me if you must, but know this: I didn't spend more than 5 minutes thinking about this before I started writing.  And away we go...

TOP 5 THINGS IT SUCKS TO WAIT FOR HERE IN DC:

5) Grocery Store
Sure, the grocery store near the metro stop at rush hour truly is an unholy marriage of cranky, hungry, and rude humanity that will test even the most patient of us city folk.

Then again, the grocery store almost NEVER smells like urine, so only four of your five senses are accosted.  Plus, isn't it REALLY your fault for not spending the extra 50 cents and picking up the TP at the bodega near your office when you had the chance, thus avoiding all of this?  Yeah, waiting 30 minutes in the 12 items or less line will force you to blame the victim eventually.

4) Metrobus
Then, there is the bus. I mean the fact that it is first necessary to wait on the side of the road in order to board the damn thing would be enough to put it on this list.  Here's the real reason: for all of the hassle that waiting for the bus brings, all regular Metrobus passengers really dread the actual moment their bus will arrive, for every bus in this city is a hot, crowded, garbage filled, baby-crying, ass-smelling, slow-moving caravan of sadness any hour of the day or night.

On the other hand...it also tends to run on time, and the bus drivers themselves are almost universally nice folks, from my experience.

3) Emergency Services
Yeah, the emergency rooms in the city's hospitals all have one thing in common: after only 20 minutes of waiting--hardly a long time by anyone's standards--you will seriously reconsider whether that stabbing, blinding pain in your abdomen is REALLY that bad, and whether or not taking two advil with a glass of scotch might just do the trick.

It's not just the fact that the waiting rooms are always terrible (which they are). Or that the cheap florescent lighting makes everyone in there look 400% more stabbed in the face than they were when they walked in (Which it totally does).  It's the fact that the TV programs they choose to play to this huddled mass are so depressing, they make every minute feel like three.  I know this shouldn't bother me so much, but if i'm going to hang out in the most depressing room in the District while in pain, I don't want my last TV program I watch to be an infomercial on skincare starring Neve Campbell.

2) Sandbags
Ah...kudos to the department of public works.  Even when they succeed in doing something great for the community, like say, handing out FREE sandbags to all DC residents  before a tropical storm is scheduled to hit so's their low lying real estate will not fill completely with water, they STILL manage to make the experience about as uncoordinated and clusterfucky as possible.

Picture 2 1/2 hours in a rental car, weaving back and forth through a 3 block maze of back streets, main streets, and one lane alleys until you get to the ONE sandbag distribution center they have in the entire city.  Worst case scenario? You could wait in that line only to find out they had run out of sandbags 7 hours before they were advertised to stop giving them out.  Yeah, that would be a long, long wait my friend.

1) The Dump
Ah, the "Waste Transfer Station" as it is called 'round these parts.  Normally, a smelly, fairly mundane yet necessary chore for the homeowner or contractor on the go.  Nine times out of Ten?  You're away in about 10 minutes.  Then there's that tenth instance, when YOU HAVE SOMEPLACE TO BE AFTERWARDS.  LIKE WORK.

Rest assured, if this is the case, someone from the city will purposely turn over their commercial garbage truck  and set it on fire right at the entrance, turning a 5 minute errand into an hour long outlast-a-thon.  At the dump.  Where, even in the best of times, it is necessary to go home and take a Silkwood shower afterwards, lest ye bring home a case of some flesh eating virus after stepping through what one must step through to get one's garbage out of one's vehicle and onto the concrete slab.

You know something else about hot garbage at a hot dump on a summer day?  It don't smell too good.

And yeah, this last one JUST happened to me, so I guess I'm still a little raw about it.

And...I'm Back from Hiatus! (It's due south of Akron donchaknow)

Greetings!

If you're reading this, it can only mean one of two things:
1) You googled "Hiatus" as part of a scrabble challenge, and accidentally clicked on this link (WELCOME!  And, yeah, it's 9 points, plus loss of turn for the unsuccessful challenge.  Sorry.)
2) You are a member of my family.

In either case, you may have noticed it's been about 6 months since my last post.  Well, I could try to blow some smoke your way and tell you the gap is due to some sort of non-laziness related factor, but seein' how wer're family and all...you know me way better than that.  I am prone to laziness bordering on apathy, especially when it comes to putting 250 words together into a semi-coherent, mildly amusing order.

Plus, you know...I was getting a little too comfy with all this social media, and I kind of prefer to be the douchebag sitting next to you at the bar who, after a few cans of Stroh's, turns to you all unsolicited like and lectures you about the evils of facebook or twitter, and how "I'm not active on either because I feel it is killing the art of conversation and correspondence letter writing."  Or not.

So, as this is my first post in a while, I thought I would get you all caught up on what's happening, before I get back to making fun of complete strangers tomorrow.

THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED (TO ME) SINCE THE LAST TIME I POSTED: 


In no particular order:

• An Earthquake hit TIACAICTG studios, putting a crack in the plaster and forcing the Wonderdog and I into a door jamb, all confused like.
  
• A hurricane hit TIACAICTG studios, forcing the Velogirl and I to wait in line 2 1/2 hours for DC sanctioned sandbags so's our basement wouldn't flood. (they were successful).
  
• The Red Sox won 82 games of baseball, and look good to win at least another 15 this year.
  
• I FINALLY sat down and learned how to play the first solo from "La Villa Strangiato" with the help of internet tabs and alot of coffee.  That was on the "guitar parts I need to learn before I die" list since I was 15.
  
• I read 4 books. 
• My parents moved 300 miles closer to me, which is something they should have done 10 years ago.
• I signed up to ride my bicycle 100+ miles one day in September, which has me alternately excited and filled with terror, as I have kind of told everyone I know about it, and if I don't finish, I will have to lie to their faces and tell them it was awesome and they should try it sometime.  
• LOTS of house projects.  Lots.  

More on all of this tomorrow.  Well, not all of this list, obviously.  But you know what I mean.