A Pound of Flesh

Some friends and I were having brunch at Eastern Market the other day, so we decided to do a little bit of flea market shopping when we were done. We walked around for a bit (I was going to buy a nice framed set of old-style Chinese coins, but the frame was terribly nicked), then happened to wander past a real estate office.

They had copied and put out a list of all the open houses taking place that day. On a lark, we decided we would go check out the ones close to the neighborhood.

I've been hankering to buy a new place for a while now. My current place feels so tiny. And, I am a master at accumulating junk. I want something bigger. I want something more "adult." I want a house house.

The first house we checked out was decent. It was a two-story townhouse, 3 bedrooms upstairs, living room, and kitchen. There was even a basement apartment complete with certificate of occupancy and separate entrance... mortgage offset! The upstairs was rather poorly laid out, though, for two of the three bedrooms were ridiculously small, and really usable only for children.

The basement apartment was occupied by a man named Jake. Undoubtedly, he was a Hill intern. He had framed pictures on the walls of him with various Republican bigwigs. It was sick. (Kidding!) The apartment was really well laid out... cute, not too cramped. And he had one of those microshavers (you know, the kind for "sensitive" areas that you can use on a balloon and still not pop it). My friend Elizabeth dragged us out of there when she realized that we were learning more about the occupant than about the apartment.

Not that any of us were really terribly serious about buying anyway.

The second place we saw was another two-story with basement. The basement contained a washer/dryer and what was charmingly described as an "in-law suite" or "au pair suite." (Yes, that's right, I'm planning on hiring an au pair when I move to a new place. You know, to take care of my nonexistent kids.) The backyard was expansive and great for entertaining! Hibachi heaven! The living room was large and included a fireplace, there was a separate dining room, and a rather large kitchen (lots of counter space!) with a dine-in area there as well! All this for only $640,000.

Man, I need to make more money, or move to a cheaper city.

So, my pound of flesh. In the bedroom on the second floor, there was one of those crawl spaces you get to by pulling down a ladder otherwise recessed into the ceiling. Unable to resist, I pulled the string down to reveal the ladder, and the rather completely uninspiring crawl space above. I didn't feel like crawling up the ladder, so I figured I'd push the ladder back up. Woah, strong springs! The ladder proceeded to retract back into the ceiling with alarming force, and with my fingers still captured in the string, well....

I pulled the better part of my left pinky nail off.

I didn't realize that the pain I felt was actually more than just pain until we got outside. I discreetly asked for a tissue or something to cover my bleeding finger. Of course, I tried to be discreet, but my friends noticed. I had to eventually make my way to a Starbucks and ask for a cup of ice to numb my finger.

My finger's not hurting as much now. It only hurts when I accidentally directly touch the area that was erstwhile covered by the nail. But I will note that it's an absolute bitch to type when you can't type "a", "q" "z" or the capital letters of anything on your right hand without moving your left hand off the home keys.

Subway stupidity

Although this post could (and probably should) be about idiocy on the Metro, it's actually not. The other day I had the most idiotic exchange ever with a person behind the counter at one of the many local Subway sandwich shops.

I've been collecting those little stamps like a fiend now. You know, so you can get a "free" sandwich after a while. I like buying the cheapest damn sandwich on the menu then redeeming the "free" one for the most damn expensive one they have. Just because I'm cheap that way.

One day, noticing that I had a slew of stamps but none of those little cards to affix them to, I walked into a Subway to ask for some of those cards:

Me: Do you have those cards to stick my stamps to?
Her: Cards?
Me: Yes. To stick my stamps on to.
Her: We have gift cards. They're $5.
Me: No. No no. I want these cards to use as part of the frequent eater program or whatever.
Her: Oh. [She doesn't move.]
Me: ... Uh, so, could I have some of those cards please?
Her: [Reaching for those gift certificate cards] How many do you want? They're $5 each.
Me: Uh, one more time, no. I want those cards that I stick my little stamps to. [At this point I'm a little annoyed that I don't have one of those stamps to show her what I mean.]
Her: Oh. Okay.
Me: So do you have those cards I'm talking about?
Her: Yes. [She doesn't move.]
Me: ... [Heightened annoyance.] Well could I have some please?
Her: Sure. They're $5 each.

By this point it's comical that we're actually both speaking English, and yet both not. So finally I resort to the lowest level dialog I can possibly muster:

Me: Look. When I buy a sandwich here, I get stamps, right?
Her: Yes.
Me: And after I get a certain number of stamps, I can get something for free, right?
Her: Yes.
Me: Now, when I get those stamps, I need to stick them to something, right?
Her: Yes.
Me: I want from you that card that I'm supposed to stick these stamps to.
Her: Okay. [She still doesn't move.]
Me: This isn't going anywhere, is it?
Her: So did you want a card or not? They're $5 each.

I left the store. At least the massive proliferation of Subways, like weeds in an unkempt garden, means that I can go almost anywhere and find a Subway that features a person who might actually know what I'm talking about.

Random Acts of Violence

This weekend was a particularly strange one for me. Well, stranger for my best gal-pal Debra, but strange definitely for me as well.

May 1 is my other gal-pal friend Lora's birthday. She was having a party that night at her house, so I spent the day doing, well, nothing in particular, just kinda gearing up to go to the party. Perhaps I considered purchasing a six-pack or something to take with me to the festivities. Never did do that, though.

The phone rings. For some reason, I don't answer it. It's Lora. She leaves me a voicemail that says, in its entirety, "When you get this message, call me." Finding that message strange, and just a bit annoying, I decided not to return the call until later.

The phone rings again a few hours later. The caller ID identifies it as Debra. Again, I choose not to pick up the phone. (I was in a mood, I guess.) No message left. Actually, I don't think it even rang for long enough to get to voicemail.

Immediately after Debra hangs up her phone, Joe calls. He leaves a voicemail too: "Hey, call me when you get this message." Again, no substance. Grrr.

So around 8:30 or 9:00, I finally call both Lora and Joe back. (Debra not having left a message, I decided not to return her call.) Lora wasn't in so I left her a voicemail. (She also has no cell phone, a fact which meets with considerable ire from many of us, because she is such a social butterfly that many times she's next to impossible to pin down.) Left a message with Joe too. Both messages: "Hey, returning your call. What's up?"

So at around 9:45, I speak to a human being for possibly the first time that day. Joe returned my call. "Did you hear about Debra?" he says. "No, what about Debra?" I respond. I'm getting slightly concerned now. Joe's next sentence does very very little to alleviate my nervousness: "First off, just to be clear, she's fine."

"Oh my God," I spit back, "What happened that you have to tell me that she's fine?!?"

Debra got stabbed on Saturday night. It was quite the act of randomness and, in fact, was quite hideously violent. Apparently, Debra had just left her apartment, having changed and freshened up after a long day of shopping, and was heading out to meet someone for dinner when, less than a block from her house on Irving Street NW in Mt. Pleasant, she was grabbed by the arm and stabbed in the neck. Yes, that's right, the neck.

Debra began screaming (we find out later that, luckily, the stabber has managed to miss every last important thing in her neck) and running literally into the street to summon assistance. Bear in mind that this is occurring at approximately 7:00 pm -- it's still plenty bright out, and there are still people around. For some reason no one is responding to her entreaties, though, so she literally throws her purse at him and says, "Here, just take it!"

Odd thoughts of a strange man wielding a bloody knife cavorting off with a bright pink purse notwithstanding, the man didn't take the purse. Instead, he followed her into the street and stabbed her again, in the back, before he finally retreated.

Finally, people emerge to help Debra. One woman is sitting with her trying to keep her coherent. A Metro bus driver has stopped his bus and is holding a cloth to Debra's throat to help stem the bleeding. (Unfortunately, someone soon pointed out that she had been stabbed in the back as well. So when that someone lifted up her jacket, the nice woman who was with her promptly passed out at the sight of the second stab wound. Debra found herself sitting there, bleeding from two knife wounds, thinking, "Great. It must be pretty damn bad if this chick is passing out on me. And I'm the one that's bleeding!".)

Well, putting aside all the other details that follow, Debra was taken to the Washington Hospital Center, where she was found to have a collapsed lung. A most hideous tube was inserted into her (somewhere -- I didn't lift up her blanket to try to figure out where exactly the tube was connected to her) to drain her lungs, which, presumably, would help revive the fallen lung. She was treated there for a few days.

So I spent much of my weekend at a hospital. I hate hospitals. The super-sanitary smell alone is enough to make me want to vomit. But I sat there next to Debra, and with my friend Lora, for quite a while just keeping her company.

As an added irony, Lora herself was born in the Washington Hospital Center. So, twenty-nine years to the day, Lora finds her back there. Not the most fun way to celebrate a birthday, but hey.

Debra's a trooper. To the extent that she could talk (she was pretty drugged up, and that drainage tube was pretty painful), she was her usual sarcastic self ("So they gave me these painkillers, but since I hadn't eaten before the stabbing, I got all sick and started throwing up. Not fun when you have a knife wound in your neck."), which I found to be excellent. I give her snaps for still having that kind of spirit when she's been the victim of a violent crime.

Her mom came down from New York to be with her, and Debra was discharged by Monday afternoon. A bunch of us went over to her place last night and had an impromptu "get better/welcome home" party. I brought a bunch of cheesy videos from my personal collection with me, since Debra doesn't have cable and would likely be bored out of her skull.

They caught the guy who did it. He's been arraigned on a charge of Assault With Intent to Kill. Despite the best efforts of my attorney friends and me (none of whom practice criminal law), we can't see the difference between that and Attempted Murder. But we'll take what we can, long as the bastard sees plenty of time behind bars, where he will hopefully be met with the long end of a big, thick penis finding its way to places he doesn't want one to go.

But She Was Pregnant!

So a friend of mine told me a story last night that was comical, in an "okay, you know that's really not funny, right?" sort of way that I thought I'd share:

My friend Katie was walking home with a friend of hers from being out with some friends one night. It was late (well past the witching hour), and suddenly she noticed her friend (a tiny little woman; some 5'3 and 109 lbs) was accelerating her pace. Katie keeps up, wondering all the while, "This is odd...."

As they reach the front door of Katie's Foggy Bottom apartment, Katie is literally clubbed. Not hard enough to knock her out or even really give her serious bodily injury mind you, but yes, someone raised a hard object and brought it down with some force at her head. Katie turned, shocked, to find... a short, stocky, very pregnant woman, surrounded by three other vigilantes (presumably the pregnant woman's "crew").

Of course, before Katie can compose herself, Pregnant Vigilante moves again, this time whacking Katie's arm in an attempt to get her to drop her purse. When that didn't work (Katie's purse was looped over her head and across her chest), P.V. simply yanked the purse and walked off with it. I say "walked," of course, because, being very pregnant, this woman was not about to run off with the purse.

Now having had some time to come to grips with what was happening, Katie suddenly decides, "This isn't right," and decides to launch an attempt to get her purse back. She follows P.V. and her crew down the street, keeping a semi-safe distance, but saying, "Hey, give me my purse back! It's my purse! Give it back!" To which P.V.A.H.C. are actually responding, to wit, they are saying "No." Katie alternately is also on a cell phone with another of her friends, Maria, describing this entire situation ("Yeah, I was just robbed outside my apartment. I'm following them now. P.V. is kinda waddling, so it's not that difficult to keep up....")

(I'm not sure what Katie's friend is doing this entire time. I think she's gone into her apartment and started calling the cops, but then again, I can't figure out where Katie's cell phone would have come from.)

In any event, at some later point I guess Katie gets separated from her attackers and meets with the police. Miraculously enough, when given the description of the attackers, the police are actually able to round up a very pregnant woman and her buddies. (Shocking, given the sheer number of pregnant women with posses who roam the streets of Foggy Bottom in the middle of the night.) One would think the story ends there, but it doesn't.

Having now somewhat identified the women as her attackers, the Police don't believe Katie. "You can't prove that they did this to you," they tell her. "Uh," stammers Katie, "I just said they did. What more do you need?" "You're not sure of the ID. This case won't ever get prosecuted," she is told. Despite Katie's protestations that, having walked behind the waddling crew for some 10 minutes, she took good stock of their backsides, and sure enough, these women had the asses she saw (complete with funky pants with a strategic tear in them), it apparently wasn't good enough.

The cops never took the attackers into custody.

Asked why Katie didn't fight back, Katie could only respond with, "I was just thinking, 'But she's pregnant!'" When she told this story, the friends we were with and I were much less sympathetic. We would have kicked P.V.'s pregnant ass. (Or so we said. Who knows what cowardly stripe would have been painted down my back had I actually been faced with that situation.)

Katie eventually found her purse, discarded. "Well, at least I get the purse back," she thought. Missing were some makeup, a cell phone, and a pack of gum. P.V.A.H.C. never thought to unzip the pocket in the lining of the purse, where they would have found about $100 in cash, some credit cards, and an ID.