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.
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