The Final Day

Now that it’s all over, it’s hard to believe it ever happened. I guess that’s just cliché; however, it’s also true. I’m back at home, a fact that makes this post seem a little less distant. I had a great time in DC this past month and I learned a lot.

I had a final day that defied the limits of misfortune. Usually, one or two bad things happen to a person in one day, causing him to label his experience “a bad day.” I lost count.

Earlier in the day, I gave my parents a tour of the Capitol and helped Jacob move out. Around 3:30 pm, I met Mr. Razmgar at his car dealership in Clarendon; he drove me back to the house so I could pick up my car. When I arrived at the Razmgar residence, Dave Williams, a graduate of BJU and a member of Pi Gamma, was waiting in the driveway. He had been working in Alabama this past year; just recently, Dave was promoted and was transferred to the DC area.

I got the keys, jumped in my car, and—voila—the battery’s dead. No surprise here. The car hadn’t been driven in a month. When I came to DC, I had planned to drive my car on the weekends; that never happened b/c I could get anywhere I needed to go using the Metro. Luckily, I put jumper cables in my trunk before I left SC earlier in June. I took them out, hooked them up to my car and Dave’s, and I started up my car. I thanked Dave and Mr. Razmgar, and I headed back to DC.

My plan was to keep my car in a parking garage overnight, pick it up and pack it up in the morning, and leave. As I look back on the evening, Burns’s “To a Mouse” comes to mind: “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, Gang aft agley.”

During my drive into DC, I most wonderfully discover that my air conditioning doesn’t work anymore. How does that happen? One month it works, the next month it doesn’t. Did somebody steal my A/C? When my A/C decided to give up the ghost, I’ll never know. I rolled down the windows in order to keep my sweat to a minimum (here, “minimum” means 2 gallons of sweat/minute instead of the usual 17). At this point, Zeus gets a sick idea in his head and turns on the clouds. Of course, this action adds balance to my life. The day after I arrived in DC, it rained; it only makes sense to have it rain the day before I leave.

Ever seen the movie Airplane? Remember when that pilot guy starts sweating profusely at the end of the movie? That’s what happened to me. With no A/C in the car and pouring-down (an adjective) rain outside, I started to get hot. But that’s hardly something to complain about. My interior lights start to blink, indicating (I think) a problem with the battery. After the first 30 or so blinks, I understand that there exists a problem with my battery. Did you hear me, you stupid car, I realize there is a problem! SO STOP BLINKING!!!!! Note: I have discovered a technique that the U.S. military might find useful at Gitmo.

With no A/C, pouring-down rain, and blinking lights, the windows start to fog up. See, defrosters require cold air in order to effect (not affect) a disappearance of the fogginess. B/c the A/C is broken, my defroster does not work. So as I enter the DC area where traffic lights are positioned on the side of the road (rather than hanging from wires like I’m used to), my windows start to fog up. I start asking simple questions: Why me? Why now? I start on 26th and Constitution NW, exactly 28 blocks from my apartment and 31 blocks from a parking garage at Union Station. Painfully I drive down Constitution, stopping suddenly whenever I realize that I’m in an intersection and don’t know the color of the light (red, green—who cares, right?).

Go get a drink, get some food, or just read the rest of this later. Anything that could have gone wrong went wrong. I found Union Station and the parking garage without further ado. After parking my car, I headed to the shops at Union Station, where I would meet an agnostic friend for dinner. I met her on the Metro two weeks before. We had gone out to dinner a couple days after I met her. That’s when I was able to get to know her and explain my faith to her. She attends Vassar College in upstate NY, a college known for its extremely liberal students and faculty. Her name is Jamie and, surprisingly, claims to be apolitical.

Her family situation, personal situation, etc. is complex. She’s had a rough life, many ups and downs. I shocked her with my background :o) A nuclear family, a Christian school, and a faith in which I have complete confidence—it was all new to her. The first night, we ate dinner and walked around. All summer, the Lord had been preparing me for this moment. I used what I had learned in Doctrines, The Screwtape Letters, and Can Man Live Without God? to answer all of her questions; and she had a lot of questions! The night before I left, we went to dinner at Hotel Washington.

Both inexpensive and extravagant, Hotel Washington is a restaurant I would recommend. Never a fan of organized religions, Jamie believed that the individual determined his own purpose in life. But she had no answers when I asked her how she determined moral law, or what hope she had for an afterlife, what meaning we had here on earth. We talked about everything: Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, origin, meaning, purpose, Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam. I left her with many questions and hope to keep up correspondence. Please pray for her if you remember her. She couldn’t bring herself to believe. She admitted that she didn’t have the faith.

I left her around 10:00 pm and headed to the Metro. When I arrived at Metro Center, I would have had to wait 15 minutes for the next train. I decided to leave the Metro station and walk back to my apartment. Yes, I’m the idiot who said, “Forget the Metro, I’m going to walk the 14 blocks to my apartment.” I’m not sure why I did that; five blocks into the walk, I was even more unsure. So fourteen blocks later, bathing in sweat, I entered my air-conditioned apartment building to pick up my car keys. B/c Union Station didn’t have overnight parking, my plan had changed: I would drive my car from the parking garage to my apartment complex, pack that night, and leave in the morning.

I didn’t want to spend a lot of time at my apartment; I just needed to pick up my keys. B/c I was thirsty, I wanted to get some water before I left. And I entered the kitchen....... What in the world??? Did my sink throw up? What looked like either fertilizer or wet ground coffee coated the sink and blotched the wall and countertops. I stood there and stared for about 20 seconds. I made sure nothing was moving and then I turned off the light and left, trying to forget what I saw. The only way my night could have been any worse was if my car didn’t start up in the parking garage.............

After that, the only way my night could have any been worse was if my arm got completely stained in soot when I leaned it on a traffic sign while waiting for a jump.............

After that, the only way my night could have any been worse was if my A/C still didn’t work, if it was still raining outside, if my windows continued to fog up, if I got lost while driving to my appointment, and if those STUPID INTERIOR LIGHTS KEPT BLINKING!!!!!.............

But after it all, I picked up a friend I had met at Russell, parallel parked in front of my apartment at midnight, and walked over to the Heritage Foundation, where I watched Sleepless in Seattle. That movie would have given even Ivan Denisovich a warm feeling inside. After watching the movie and saying goodbye to the friend, I headed back to my apartment with a smile on my face. I cleaned what I could in my kitchen, packed everything in my car, and hit the sack around 4:00 in the morning.

What a day, right? And after spending an hour writing over 1,400 words about it, I think I’ll remember it for quite some time :o)

Reflections later. I left my apartment yesterday at 6:57 am (my car started—yay!) and arrived in Greenville at 3:15 pm. I went to bed at 11:40 pm last night and awoke at 4:30 pm today. Sweet :)

Back to bed. I’m out.