Good Samaritanism

Riding the Metro in D.C. is a thrilling experience that all people should make time for when visiting the city.

 

You really can't know exactly who or what you are going to encounter on a standard trip into downtown for an evening out, but that, I believe, is what makes it so exciting.

It's the thrill of the unknown that makes it a must experience attraction.

For example, I personally have been shot with a cane and hexed by a witch. 

I have witnessed police detainment, verbal and physical altercations, as well as a possible prostitute soliciting.

A couple of weeks ago, I even encountered a vampire.  Not the Edward kind (i WISH!)…

or even the Vampire Bill kind…

She was the way more scary variety; the actually looks 100 years old type that no human ever wants to meet.   Lucky me.

And, this is all by someone who rides only occasionally, when a D.C. area special event requires it.

Imagine what it must be like for a daily commuter!

I'm sure that the repeated exposure to cooky weirdness desensitizes one to it, so that seeing a supernatural being, or playing a role in the alternate universe of a schizophrenic ex-soldier is common place.

But, for me, being serenaded by an elderly doowop group is something to write blog about.

Each and every time I travel from my humble suburb of a D.C. suburb I get to enjoy the inner workings of the city. 

All of the parts that I was too naive to notice (or possibly, too drunk to care) in my younger days in LA make it a point to come out to play.

I'm not sure why I was actually surprised that my most recent trip ended with BFF and I being witnesses to a hit and run (no one was hurt, thankfully) accident.

After a night which began with Officer PTSD sniping me on the Metro platform, I guess I should not have been at all surprised when the Crypt Keeper showed up on my train in her cat suit and velvet cape either.

Nor should I have been amazed by the fact that hundreds of seemingly full brained people were unable to locate and claim the correct seats at a Washington Wizards game.

We spent a large portion of the event staring not at the action on the court, but instead at the action going on in the bleachers directly in front of us.

And, it was not only the alphabetically and numerically challenged patrons who struggled to get situated correctly, it was also the Verizon Center staff, friendly as they were, who seemed to be stumped by the seating system as well.

Even after they got involved in unscrambling the Great Stadium Seating Mix-up of 2009 it took more than a half an hour to get things sorta-kinda-it'll-do-since-some-seats-were-empty-anyway worked out.  There was even one very frightening moment in which an usher actually asked me what seat I was sitting in and then asked what seat was next to mine (stands to reason that if I'm in J12, then the one next to me is probably gonna be J13 or J11, right?!).

I forgave him because he was young, and the mathletes around us were getting him all flustered with their growing impatience.

What I'm still struggling to forgive however, is the buttplug in front of us who spent a good 15 minutes in a heated argument with the owners of the seats he'd commandeered about why he took them and why he can't move and how, if they'd relax (which was virtually impossible since they were standing because HE WAS IN THEIR SEATS!) he'd move when he finished his snack.

So, not only was I distracted from the game by his incessant jabbering, but even if I could tear myself away from his enthralling comments, I couldn't see because of the people STANDING UP IN FRONT OF ME!

Brilliant.

But, at least the kiss cam was sweet.

 

Also brilliant was the 60 year old disco-stick who was so wasted on the Metro on the way home from the game that he stumbled (trying to chase down a ball that was dropped; long story, just note that it too was unbelievably dumb), lost his balance, and fell into the purse of the woman sitting across from us.

Please note that when I say he fell into it, I actually mean he fell INSIDE of it.

He literally fell and landed with his head on the <span style="font-style:italic;">inside</span> of her purse.  And, then, to make it even more ridiculous he stayed inside of it for much longer than was acceptable. 

Just crouched there, butt in the air, head in her purse for an uncomfortable length of time.  After first, I though he was just kickin’ it in there, acquainting himself with the inner workings of the female handbag.  But then, he stayed in a little too long, causing us all to wonder if he’d actually passed out in there. 

After the is-it-a-full-moon? night we’d been having I would not have been surprised at all if that would’ve been the case, but I’m guessing he was just disoriented momentarily because he popped his drunk face outta there, retrieved his baseball (yep, there really was a ball), and found a seat to park it in for the remainder of the trip.

And yes, BFF and I laughed uncontrollably, out loud, in his face, because drunk-old-dude-awkwardly-wedged-inside-of-a-purse-like-an-ostrich is nothing if not funny.

And, all this topped off with the responsibility ditching, redneck rig (aka an unnecessarily huge pickup truck used for digging, rigging, and the like) which was possibly driven by the aforementioned drunk, 60 year old purse diver, that unceremoniously clipped the back of a minivan directly in front of me while changing lanes.

I tried to participate in a high speed chase when the braniac decided to floor it, but Hit-and-Run Driver Extraordinaire hung a right, and since I wasn’t really going that way, minivan was on his own.

Good Samaritanism has it’s limits even if no one else in this world seems to.

And, this week, instead of thanking any of these upstanding citizens I’ve decided to do something I’ve never done before; turn it around on them and say this…

You know, for not shooting you back, staking you, pushing you down three hundred (yes, we were that high up) flights of stairs onto the court, dousing you with my water bottle to sober you up, or ramming you repeatedly with my car.

You.  Are.  Welcome.

Pop over to Junk Mail Greetings where you can find a whole crap load of similarly awesome designs.  Even a few gems that are just perfect for the OMG-it’s-effing-December-already-shoot-me-now holiday!

And, Mama Kat, I can tell you what I WON’T be doing this holiday season…sitting in the cheap seats at a sporting event in D.C. 

Cheap seats on a cruise might not be so bad, though:)