Drag Queens Have Far More Class

Near the top of my long list of "things I've done in DC but see no reason to do twice" is the annual High Heel Race in Dupont. Don't get me wrong, it's fun, and funny, and chock-full of G-A-Y. Good times had by all.

Basically, a bunch of dudes dressed like drag queens race down 17th Street wearing heels. The outfits and characters are as entertaining as the anticipation of seeing someone eat asphalt. I'd recommend going except the race was held last night, and if you missed it, you'll have to wait until next October to catch it again. Loser.

The only reason why I wouldn't go a second time is because of the crowd. The race doesn't start until 9pm, but spectators start lining up along the sidewalk by 6pm. I don't like crowds in the first place. But I especially don't like crowds full of stupid drunk girls. And let me tell you, the High Heel Race attracts a ton of stupid drunk chicks. I'm not talking the Shouts "Wooooo!" at Everything drunk girl. They're okay. I'm talkin' Stumbles Everywhere and Starts Fights with Grown Men drunk girl.

The DC night scene is filled to the brim with this particular sub-species of drunk girl. And they always travel in packs of four or five. They're pretty looking, but its the kind of pretty that when she speaks you know instantly that personality plays no role in her boyfriend's decision to date her.

Case in point. When I went everyone was on the sidewalk smooshed together, shoulder to shoulder, ass to crotch. You couldn't sneeze without toppling the people around you. But here comes drunk girl and her skunked friends... forcing their way from the back of the line to the sidewalk front. She held up to her face a small camcorder, and slurred as loud as she could, "Moooooove! We need to seeeeee! I'm a cameraman for PBS!!!"

Drunk Girl clearly wasn't with the Public Broadcasting Service. But for reasons I don't fully understand, people stood aside and let her through anyway. It worked until she came up behind the rather tall and large feller standing right behind me who wasn't having any of it.

He refused to budge. Words were exchanged. She clocked him over the head with the camcorder (ouch!). Fists started flying. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked out a patch (double ouch!). Her friends went ballistic.

This would have been fun to watch, except me, my friends, and the people around me had to absorb the force of these dumbasses thrashing about. Being the nearest guy, I stepped in between the two, grabbed dude by the arm and pulled him back with the help of his buddy. Yay me. I mean, the girl was a total bitch but still. Dude calmed down right away, but Drunk Girl, classy as ever, regained her composure and she and her friends scurried away like cockroaches after dropping a few more f-bombs.

Alas, this wouldn't be the last time yours truly saves Drunk Girl despite her best efforts to get herself killed. But that's a story for another day.

File Under: The Point is Moot

Fearful that a terrorist could hijack a metro train and run it better than they can, WMATA announced it may begin conducting random bag searches for weapons and explosives at indiscriminate stations.

I don't really have an opinion on this since I largely swore off using Metro a year ago. I guess my only beef is that Metro seems to be emphasizing prevention because they're incapable of MANAGING emergencies in the first place. They can't even manage their own disaster simulations without fucking up. Unless perhaps their failed simulations are just practice for fucking up in real life? Wrap your head around that next time you wait for a train.

The sad reality is that if shit ever goes down in this city, we're all gonna die. Metro riders especially. Imagine if something were to actually happen (Xenu forbid) on a crowded platform during rush hour. Do you think the guy in the booth is going to do anything? In all likelihood he won't even be in there. Your only hope for survival is a blast that kills enough people to lessen the violent stampede up the non-functioning escalators. Oh and lets not forget that when your train is stuck in a tunnel and the nerve gas starts seeping through the vents, only Verizon customers will be able to call their loved ones to say goodbye. The rest of us can return to our soduko puzzles apparently.

Yeah, it's all very FUBAR. On a happier note, the holidays are around the corner! I put the number of train jumpers at 3 this winter. Anyone?

Are YOU a Washingtonian?

So the Washington Post is running a 300-word essay contest called “What Does It Mean to Be a Washingtonian?” It goes like this:

“We hope you will put your finger on the essential qualities and characteristics that define this region, from a ward in D.C. to a farm in Loudoun, and everywhere else in the area. We're not looking for simple descriptions of your neighborhood, for Christ’s sake shut up about your community garden already, but rather what you might say to someone who isn't from here about what living in the nation's capital means.”

Here’s the irony: Answer the way the Washington Post would like (all prim and proper) and you could win $100. *disco*

But answer the way YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD and you’ll get jack. At best they'll post your essay online with the other entries. And that just means some dickhead from a blog like “I Grow a Chub for DC,” cluttered with pics of row houses and urban scenery, will read it and respond with a post about how it’s absolutely inconceivable that anyone could hate Washington, D.C. (By the way, for bloggers who think themselves clever by asking why would someone who hates DC choose to stay and blog about it? I’ll deal with you retards another day).

Entries aren’t due until December 31st, so in the meantime The Post's website is featuring sample essays. As you can imagine, they're full of glowing praise for the city. Enough to make you puke. So far my favorite (in a creepy sort of way) is from columnist John Kelly:

“You’re a Washingtonian if you are affected by the gravitational pull of the capital, if your routine or your mind-set is influenced by the unique rhythms and practices of the federal government.”

The gravitational pull of the capitol? The rhythms of the federal government? I do beleive Mr. Kelly means to be boned by the Washington Monument. Hard.

No srsly. Like, really hard.

Here’s another sample entry:

“There are a million little things that I love about this city, beginning with my daughters, who are Washingtonians. They were raised on puree I made from vegetables bought at the Sunday farmers' market at Dupont Circle.”

For cryin’ out loud. I don’t even know where to begin with that one. Here’s another:

“Washingtonians have generous hearts.”

Take a moment to reflect on that statement. Okay, let's continue…

“Washingtonians have generous hearts. Everyone here is committed to social causes, either working for a nonprofit organization or giving a considerable amount of themselves or their wallets to doing good. Making a difference in the world seems to be our main preoccupation.”

Right. Everyone is committed to social causes, especially the good people at Child Protective Services or the DC Department of Disabilities.

"And let me pause to thank the originators of this contest for using the term "Washingtonians." We were raised to describe ourselves that way. "District of Columbia," "D.C.," "The District" - those phrases never passed our lips."

Whatever man. What. Ever. You may call yourself a Washingtonian, but everyone else thinks you're a jackass.

Sort through all the bullshit accolades for the city, and there’s only one guy, ONE GUY, who gets close:

"Washington, writes poet Kenneth Carroll, is a place where "hope and disappointment live uneasily on the same block, like natives and gentrifiers."

Kenneth Carroll FTW.

Where's My Bourbon!

You know what I hate about DC? The weed here sucks. You'd think given the crime ridden reputation of this city that the quality/price/quantity ratio would be decent, right? But no, it's not, and you wind up having to drive allllll they way to suburb-tastic Annandale which VDOT never makes easy.

Unless your hookup lives in, say, Anacostia or certain parts of NE, you're smoking yuppie swag.

***

So there you go, folks. A post. The blog lives.

I'm sure you have lots of questions. Hell, I have lots of questions. What's up with Rusty? Who's running the blog?

I miss Rusty too. He's a cool cat, smart, and we all loved him or at least loved to hate him which is really just another form of love. I haven't spoken to him directly. I only know he's alive because he sent me a blogger invite. In Why I Hate DC land, Rusty's like an omnipresent unseen Christ figure, constantly watching us from above and acting in mysterious ways. We shouldn't question HIS plan, but instead have faith and pray that he may return to us one day. There you go Russ. I just equated you to Jesus, you bastard.

As for Shiva the Destroyer (aka Liz)? I haven't the foggiest bottom. For now we'll have to accept that Liz is basically like Dr. Beverly Crusher in season two of Star Trek the Next Generation. For those of you who grew up watching 90210 or some other myopic teenage shit-drama, Dr. Crusher was the Enterprise's chief medical officer and the mother of the ship's sixteen-year-old helmsman, Wesley Crusher. Without any warning, explanation, or plot development, she disappeared from the show inexplicably abandoning her fatherless teenage son, Wesley, leaving him to fly the ship and be raised by Klingons. So that's where we're at. I'm Wesley.

(Try to guess whether or not I have a life.)

Look, what I'm trying to say is we'll play this banjo by ear. I know some of you submitted essays and wanted to contribute to the blog in a group setting and perhaps that's where we'll go. Stay tuned.

Ok, That's Enough

Hello. Rusty here.

I tried e-mailing Liz to see what was up and I got no response. Which really was no surprise since she obviously gave up on this blog.

Just because I'm in a weird city like Columbus doesn't mean that I still don't hate DC. In fact, for some reason, mail being sent to me from the District isn't getting to my apartment in Columbus. And what kind of mail should I be getting from DC? Why security deposits and paychecks of course! It might not be DC's fault, but, come on, DC has always been a good scapegoat. Why stop now?

Well, as you probably have noticed, Liz didn't work out. It was my mistake to select a writer instead of a blogger. Writers are awesome, but don't necessarily want to write three times a week. We don't need writers. We need bloggers.

(Which is not to say I condone the way some people treated Liz. Some of you were total assholes. I liked her posts. I liked some of them an awful lot. The transition from writer to reader was almost seamless. I looked forward to her posts. Then they stopped.

Liz is going to check this site or try to post and see that she got her privs revoked and that probably isn't fair. But it's October 1st and her last post was September 13th. I had to do this.

Liz, I am sorry. You probably deserve better. I thought you were great until you disappeared.)

So, what to do? To be honest, I don't know. I am incredibly disappointed that this site is floundering. I very much want it to succeed. There is so much to complain about and my predecessor's work (James F, duh) is going to waste. He created a popular site and, according to SiteMeter anyway, I helped it grow. I want that growth to continue.

I get the feeling that I may not be very good at assigning successors. If you'd like to write here, send me an e-mail to the old address (whyihatedc@gmail.com) and state your case. Obviously, I would prefer it if you already have a blog. I need to know you can update more than twice a month. Design skills would also be appreciated since -- and I didn't think this was possible -- the site looks shittier now than it did under my watch.

Before I could offer potential bloggers a built-in audience. I don't know if that audience is still here. I hope it is. If you have faith, send me that e-mail.

DC Douche Quiz, part two: The Carpet Baggers

When you step into an elevator with other people, you feel compelled to:

(a) Say something pleasant to each person there.

(b) Look at the ceiling and sigh because they are in your space.

(c) Hum a little tune or read your paper. So you seem sociableish but won't be asked to talk.


When waiting for a bus, you often:

(a) Ask everyone else standing there how long they think it will take.

(b) Call the number listed on the sign to complain that the drivers are NOT adhering to the SCHEDULE.

(c) You don't do buses.


Your hair is generally:

(a) The result of much effort and shine enhancing spray/gel (depending on gender).

(b) Six to eight months out from the last trim.

(c) One of your biggest expenses, but you'd never admit it.


You apply for jobs/internships that you hope will:

(a) Allow you to fill your life-long dream of helping every person in the world. A lot.

(b) Allow you to fill your life-long dream of being a Michael P. Keaton smarty pants type.

(c) Allow you a little breathing room from your parent's pressure to get a job.



You get upset in public when:

(a) The metro employee is mean even though you totally MEANT to put money on your card.

(b) The service employee requests you to follow a policy you are breaking specifically because it doesn't make SENSE.

(c) It's unacceptable to be upset in public. Or ever.



Generally, you perform volunteer service by:

(a) Showing up at the occasional homeless shelter.

(b) Joining a complicated and elite program reserved for volunteer MBAs from "the best" schools.

(c) Showing up at your family's annual benefit.



You found your apartment through:

(a) A Craig's List ad that emphasized, "Sociable," "Fun," and "Under 24."

(b) A Craig's List ad that emphasized, "Vegetarian or Vegans-only" and "Weekly group meetings."

(c) Your family keeps a place here.


You brag about gaining "issue expertise," but your job really involves

(a) Filing correspondence and mailing form letters.

(b) Making up things to pretend to be doing in between times you follow your boss to meetings where, you suspect, the participants made up an excuse to have a meeting so they could pretend they have something to do.

(c) Locating illicit substances and providing alibis for semi-important family friends.

The DC Douche Quiz

I compete with strangers on the train in made-up categories such as, "Better choice of walk-to-work-flip-flops," and "More contained hair toss." I compete with work colleagues, colleagues from grad school, "She got a job WHERE? Really? NO!" And - I am not proud - once googled every name I could remember from decades ago, to make sure no one is anywhere near as important a fellow graduate of Mrs. Powers' kindergarten class.

Even so, I am nice enough not to fight for seats on the metro. I also never yell at passing cars, passers by who are in my way, or service workers. Which in this town, has to put me in the top 20 percent of nicest citizens. (See what I just did there?)

I'm guessing half of the people reading this think I am crazy. The other half are already wracking their brains trying to top my stories with stories of their own competitive urges.

For these fellow sufferers, I have prepared a helpful quiz of unkind, anti-social or just spectacularly annoying traits which seem specific to the D.C. area.

You participated, as a candidate, in a student government election in any educational setting, including (and yes, I know several of these people) elementary school
5 points

You participated, as a candidate, in a student government election in any educational setting, LOST, and then ran again
Multiply the original 5 points by the number of failed attempts.

You have strong opinions on the current bus route schedule
5 points

You have strong opinions on the current bus route schedule, and you share these opinions with the bus driver while in the presence of multiple other passengers who really, really want you to shut the hell up
Multiply the original 5 points times by the number of fellow passengers who do not hit you. Add 10 more points if you do get slapped.

You correct strangers in public
5 points

You correct strangers in public on such non-public-safety related topics as, "Which country invented pastrami," "The best McDonalds in the city," or, "The name of the next metro stop."
10 points

You correct strangers in public, and you are wrong
Just go to hell

You own, read, or laughed at jokes repeated from something called a 'Pick Up Artist' manual
20 points

You wrote such a manual, or you introduce yourself in public as a 'Pick Up Artist
I would give you points for that shit but I know you haven't had sex with a non-plastic or non-passed-out woman in years, so nothing I can do will make you feel worse.

You forward mass emails sharing your political convictions to everyone in your contacts list
5 points

You write a cutesy email about how you don't appreciate mass emails, and then forward it to everyone in your contacts list
Do you GET what's wrong with that? Do you? Obviously not, so 20 points

You memorized a politics-related article before going out, and demand that every person you meet that night share some sort of opinion on the topic
20 points (unless it's an article I also read)

You wear an outfit copied, in total, from the J. Crew catalog to work.
5 points

You secretly believe you are a Malcolm Gladwell* "connector" of people.
5 points

You TELL PEOPLE you are a Malcolm Gladwell "connector" of people.
20 points




* Author of "Tipping Point," a book about the theory of making masses of people do what you want.

My Mugger v. My Ex Boss

Too often, we fear the lightning-bolt risk - the plane crash, the identity theft, the stranger abduction - over more prosaic but statistically more-likely threats. In D.C., we let worries about crime force us into racist and classist segregation. Yet, as eager and ambitious youths, many of us volunteer to spend most of our daylight hours with people who really, really suck. God forbid we live within range of Georgia Ave. But show us a sadistic idiot with an administrative assistant opening, and we FIGHT to work on his bandwagon. (For free, of course).

To illustrate this idea, here's a side-by-side comparison of my mugger and my ex-boss, measured in several categories that I made up to prove my point.

Favorite Catch Phrase

Mugger: Hey Chica! Over here!
Ex-Boss: Same.

Edge: It's a draw.

Annoying Habit

Mugger: Grabbing at my purse.
Ex-Boss: Employing supposed "rapport building technique" of mimicking EVERY DAMN HAND GESTURE MADE BY THE PERSON SEATED ACROSS FROM HIM.

Edge: Mugger.

Helpful Suggestion

Mugger: Something that sounded like, "You should eat your father in HELL." (My Spanish is bad).
Ex-Boss: "You should buy more porn."

Edge: Have to give this one to the boss.

Work Ethic

Mugger: Out prowling the streets at all hours.
Ex-Boss: In by 10 a.m. almost every morning. Often worked right through til lunch.

Edge: Mugger.

Attempted Haul

Mugger: Tried to grab a purse containing some insured credit cards and three tubes of lip gloss.
Ex-Boss: Tried to keep half of last two paychecks, all unused vacation time and some personal items kept at the office; claimed "record keeping error" when contacted by attorney.

Edge: Mugger again.

Long-term Risk Posed to Society

Mugger: May grab a few more wallets.
Ex-Boss: May breed.

Edge: Mugger. Oh lord god in heaven. It's sooooo the mugger.


Well there you go. My parents cringed at the thought of my riding the bus with, gasp, illegals. But they were EXCITED that I could have the opportunity to spend a large chunk of every day locked in a room with a jackass who started every other conversation with, "I know some people will say I shouldn't talk about something like this at work, but...heh..." Clearly they are stupid and I should move to Galludet and use the money I save on rent to buy better-quality beer.

Even when it feels so right, segregation is still WRONG....

One of the recent commenters posted something randomly stupid and racist. (Shocking. I know).

This Glover Park resident* claimed that living in D.C. has taught him is to "run when (he) sees a group of black people."

Now, it's possible this person has never been to D.C. and just felt like trolling (I have had my suspicions about some of the people on here before). But he does sound somewhat credibly D.C.ish. So let's think about what he said, shall we?

D.C. is a little more than 60 percent non-white. Which means this commenter, a member of the true ethnic minority: 1) Is able to live in a place where he sees members of the actual true majority THIS rarely? 2) Feels that majority is dangerous enough to be avoided at a RUN? (Like we're in Haiti or something). And 3) At the same time, feels safe and secure enough in his racist assumptions to express his opinion in a pretty public place (Granted, trolls are just trying to be offensive, but still!)

The conclusion I'm drawing here is that we have managed to segregate the asshole white boys into sections of the city where they cannot bother the rest of us. Despite the obvious advantages, is this really who we want to be?

Or should we open our neighborhoods to all, even the ignorant unwashed frat boys? Yes, they hoot at all hours of the night and tip very poorly and generally act the fool (the FOOL) in public. Yes, they only received employment in our city by the grace of their daddy's golf buddy, and this affirmative action was no true favor to either the frat boys, or the people forced to share a bus with the loudmouth assholes. Yes, we'd rather force them into a ghetto of their own making, where they can do shooters off each other's baseball hats in idiotic hilarity for all time.

It is great for those of us who do not have to live near their constant public puking, and worse. But it is still wrong. We must make a place where all, jackass and non-jackass alike, can coexist. We cannot discriminate on the basis of stupidity, even stupidity that is rank and obvious and offensively stupid. We must rise above our personal prejudices and learn what, exactly, makes our frat boy brethren tick. (Here's a hint, CHEAP BEER).

Only then, will we truly have the city of which we can be proud. (And yes, I'm moving in a year, so it is rather easy for me to stick the rest of you with them. Sorry).




* I'm guessing here, because he sounds too white to live anywhere else, and too poorly educated to have been able to afford Georgetown.

Last post, now with subtitles!

Self-hating sellout editorials like this make a lot more sense when you realize it's the same paper that hired one Mr. Andres Martinez.

(WaPo editorial board = condescending assholes who fear women because women are ladies with scary lady parts)

He's the editorialist who writes something really boring called, I swear, Stumped. And who has apparently been stalking a D.C. woman who somehow failed to understand how much of a "cruel whore" she was. So Martinez invented a false identity and emailed threats to her and her friends and her family for a few months.

(A guy who writes a mostly stupid, but also wonkish and horribly boring column, acted so stabby that his former girlfriend finally took out a restraining order on him)

The sickest part is that his resume made me so jealous. In D.C., being a prestigious SENIOR fellow with three degrees from three separate top schools (two ivies and Stanford!) is like if you were - to put it in real world terms - say, a starlet who stole Brad from Angie and then dumped him for George.

Oh wait. That's not the real world either. Dammit. *

(If this guy were poor and lived in the Midwest, he'd have to report this "incident" on every application for Denny's. But this is D.C. and he's one of our stars).

Anyway. Everyone I know wants to be this guy - maybe minus the impending civil suit. Although now his career is as blown as... oh... I don't know... Bill O'Reilly's? We all know getting caught being a bizarro asshole could completely destroy your credibility in this town. **

(No one cares if you are mean to women, as long as you don't cheat on your wife).

Given his enthusiasm and talent for playing the victim, I suspect he'll be fine. Wounded but courageous in the face of this harpy's unaccountable refusal to continue sleeping with him, he'll carry on as a card-carrying member of the ruling class.

(And no one cares if you have a restraining order against you, as long as you went to at least one Ivy).

How much do you want to bet that the Post editorial page eventually, probably quite soon in fact, runs something like, "Why are women so dumb and MEAN that I have to PUNISH THEM?" (But it won't be sexist because they'll get a girl to write it).

(So. Yeah. WaPo editorial board = condescending assholes who fear women because women are ladies with scary lady parts)

It would so perfect if this guy turned out to be a member of LNS...

Self-hating sellout editorials like this make a lot more sense when you realize it's the same paper that hired one Mr. Andres Martinez.

He's the editorialist who writes something really boring called, I swear, Stumped. And who has apparently been stalking a D.C. woman who somehow failed to understand how much of a "cruel whore" she was. So Martinez invented a false identity and emailed threats to her and her friends and her family for a few months.

The sickest part is that his resume made me so jealous. In D.C., being a prestigious SENIOR fellow with three degrees from three separate top schools (two ivies and Stanford!) is like if you were - to put it in real world terms - say, a starlet who stole Brad from Angie and then dumped him for George.

Oh wait. That's not the real world either. Dammit. *

Anyway. Everyone I know wants to be this guy - maybe minus the impending civil suit. Although now his career is as blown as... oh... I don't know... Bill O'Reilly's? We all know getting caught being a bizarro asshole could completely destroy your credibility in this town. **

Given his enthusiasm and talent for playing the victim, I suspect he'll be fine. Wounded but courageous in the face of this harpy's unaccountable refusal to continue sleeping with him, he'll carry on as a card-carrying member of the ruling class.

How much do you want to bet that the Post editorial page eventually, probably quite soon in fact, runs something like, "Why are women so dumb and MEAN that I have to PUNISH THEM?" (But it won't be sexist because they'll get a girl to write it).

* For the record, I am hinting here that our obsession with prestige is as stupid as L.A.'s celebrity culture. That is all. Thank you.

** See, this isn't true and I am being sarcastic again. You can TOTALLY get caught being mean to women who are single/whores/probably asking for it. You just can't get caught cheating on your WIFE because that is wrong.

The school tee...

School colors line the streets of D.C. every weekend.

Not all schools, of course. Just the Good Ones.

First, we have the high school tee. In a small town, if you see a grown man, one not old enough to be a grandparent, wearing one of these it usually means, "Yeah, I'm 30 and I have a kid in high school." Or, "My best days are behind me and now I live in my mom's basement." Sometimes both.

In D.C. they're all from boarding schools. Wearing the tee means, "Yeah, I didn't get into an Ivy."

Then we have the minor eastern seaboard colleges. (Do they ever graduate anything that's not blond, btw?) I won't name names. Both because it's rude and because I still don't completely understand the hierarchy involved. Is Holyhoke better than that one down in North Carolina? Whatevs. They seem to know.

Finally, we have the top schools. Of these, only Harvard grads (and parents and cousins and grandmas of Harvard grads) will wear the tee in public (Sometimes even, it seems, as part of a business casual ensemble. Which even a hick from nowheresville like me can tell is PRETTY TACKY). Maybe you'll see an occasional Columbia or Stanford. Never a Yale. This is because the classy way to advertise your school pride is to wear the colors. Which are always gaudy and not something a normal person would combine. That way only everyone who has ever heard of Princeton will know why you're wearing tiger striped socks.

What you don't often see are the Big Ten school sweatshirts that blanket the ever-increasing middles in the middle of the country. Everyone has at least a few school tees where I'm from - most of the people wearing them didn't even go there. It's how you advertise which sports you're in to (basketball is Indiana, football is Ohio or Michigan, Wisconsin just says saddddd...) Or where you grew up. But no one wears them here.

This was weird to me when I first moved to D.C. It became less weird as more people reacted to my school with, "Oh. Uh huh. So where is that again?" (In the STATE with the SAME NAME, maybe?)

Why I call cabs...

Maybe no one else has this problem, but in addition to the ever-present, "Anyone who doesn't vote for my candidate is an IDIOT" mass emails, I also get all these random forwards of crime warnings. "Watch out, there's a psycho pretending to sell women perfume in parking lots who gets into your car and kidnaps you..." "Watch out there's a gang of psychos who require a virgin's foot as the price of initiation...." (Yeah, that was from my super-religious and, apparently, still-hopeful Aunt). "Watch out there's a five-foot-10-inch white man suspected of 11 recent rapes in your (now former) neighborhood."

I did appreciate that last one.

The rest I try to ignore. Statistically, crime is rare. On any given day the odds are on your side. When I moved to the big, bad city, I told myself that if something ever happened, I would cooperate. Be reasonable. Muggers are people too. Most people don't want trouble, right? I was set.

Yeah. Turns out, the mugger ended up afraid of me.

I'm really not THAT mean. I swear. He just had bad timing.

First, I don't like rain. And it was pouring.

I also don't like drunk people (drunk people who are not me or people I hang out with when we are not drunk, anyway).

Finally, I really, really, really don't like walking home from the bar alone. In the rain. Especially not when I was under the impression that, maybe, perhaps, I had unofficial PLANS with someone. In hopes of making these plans reality, I had even turned down a ride from the people I went out with. Looking back, the invitation, "My boss is taking me to a bourbon tasting and then I'd like to meet up with you after..." was all kinds of red flaggery. At the time, though, I was furious.

I found out later my intended escort passed out on someone's couch before midnight with, he later claimed, a half finished text to me in the phone still clutched to his heaving drunken bosom. (Of COURSE he tried to text, right?)

Meanwhile, I was alone. Off I staggered, holding my coat over my head in a pointless attempt to stay dry. Other night clubs began to empty. The side streets were scattered with drunks who hooted at everyone. I really wasn't paying attention until I realized one of them was grabbing for my damn ARM.

I am normally pretty nice about drunken passes. There's no point in embarrassing someone. You keep it cool. Pull back. Let them know who's boss.

Did I mention I was a leeetle tipsy?

What was intended to be a gentle, dignity-saving reproof came out as, "Would you FUCK OFF! I don't even LIKE MEN! I AM A LESBIAN TONIGHT! A LESBIAN!"

He looked surprised. We both were, actually.

He tried to say something else. I decided I was too tired to deal with this. I gave up trying to hold my coat over my head and began to run.

He started running too. It seemed unusually persistent.

He also had friends. Who were all running down the street as well.

I'm thinking, "Stupid drunks."

I kept yelling, "I don't know what is WRONG with you? OBVIOUSLY I DON'T WANT TO TALK RIGHT NOW!"

At which point one of them grabbed for the purse again.

I realized that there had been some, rather serious, miscommunication.

Fortunately by then I had a pretty good lead.

It's sort of like forgetting whether or not you turned off the stove. Sort of...

Oh. You know.

Sometimes you rescue an injured accident victim from an alley. You do all the paperwork. Then you just need to get home after your shift. And you sort of forget to, what was it again? Oh yeah! You sort of forget to let the man's family know WHERE HE IS.

He dies.

Alone.

Almost two months later.

So.... yeah. Good luck with the whole "internal investigation."

Did I mention this is the third time something like this has happened THIS YEAR? Because it seems like someone in charge should have kicked some serious non-reporting ass the first or second time, doesn't it?

The scenic route...

"Ok, that's 45 another cents, 50, 55..."

The cab driver was starting to look distressed. I smiled brightly at him and shook my purse, searching for more change at the bottom.

"Oh! Here's a quarter - that makes 80 more cents. And I know I have some more change in my pocket. Just a sec."

His mouth closed in a thin line. He began to shift restlessly.

"Hey, how long is this going to take?"

I smiled again. A little more coldly this time.

"I guess after hitting TWO dead end streets and refusing to take the underpass at that traffic circle... and then there was that one detour where you made three lefts in a row... and, oh yeah, the last pass around the block while I tried to tell you to just let me out (which cost me an extra $1.25)... Well, silly me! I somehow got the impression that you have nothing BUT time to waste."

Holding his eyes in a yeah-I-dare-you-to-say-shit-stare, I slowly unzipped every compartment in my wallet, looking for his tip...