The Squirrel Attack and the Smithsonian's Bathroom

Day 2 of our trip

We get up and around, showers taken, teeth brushed and clothes put on. We head out and start driving south towards Washington D.C. Here's where it get's to the good part, and Brigette will start laughing when reading this. We are making good time and we need to stop and get gas, as well as use the restroom facilities. This is one of those kinds of places where you have to pay in advance, and you can't use credit cards at the pumps. So as Bib goes to pay so I can fill up the tank (she sees a drug deal happen by the way) she sees that there are no restrooms at this pumpstation and will have to use something else.

There is a little seafood place nearby and she opts to go there. When finished doing her busniness, she's walking out the door when a voice shouts, "Excuse me Ma'am!" Brigette turns around, and asks what. "That will be Ten Dollars!" My lady friend is taken aback. "Excuse me?" "You didn't buy anything, and you used my restroom. That will cost you ten dollars." Quickly, she exited the smelly shrimp place and came over to me where I had the van waiting. She told me her story and I thought better of using the restroom myself, so I hold it, thinking we're already in D.C., how long could it be until we find another bathroom?

Pretty long as it turns out...

I drove around that cursed city for an hour and a half needing to use the restroom and unable to find a stinking parking spot. That town has about 20 parking spots and all of them were full. Ok, that's a bit of an stretch. It's more like 15 parking spots... Anyway, I finally luck out and get one I don't have to parallel a Dodge Caravan into and we hope out and head towards the nearest building. Now, understand, we've just gotten parked and are psyched out to see all there is to see in Washington D.C. including the main Smithsonian museam. The closest bathroom, er, I mean national landmark building is the National Art Museam, one of the Smithsonian's 12 sites in D.C. I enter the hallowed building, do my business and then meet up with Brigette with a goofy look on my face. She said that she's never gotten to spend a lot of time in this building as everytime in the past she had, Jamie (her jerk ex if you're not in the know) always rushed through it and never would let her spend time there. I said we have no kids, I love art too, why don't we stay for a while? We've got nothing holding us back. Fate, it seems, had something else planned. We are not there for even 15 minutes when she got a call. It's Jamie, saying he wants her to pack her stuff up that night. She tells him fine and that we'll come back that night. She gives me the news and is stressing a little bit. He couldn't even keep his children for two full days without having to wiggle his way out of it. His own children! He hadn't even seen them for about six months and this jerkwad can't even do it for two days. I should point out that Bib called the kids the previous night, only to have them crying that they wanted her to pick them up that night. What a father, huh? They were crying, but why? I'll get to that in a bit....

Anyway, we do a whirlwind tour of D.C. We start walking from where we are, the next thing is the Washington Monument. It's closed for maintenence so we press on. Next is the World War II monument and it is absolutly awesome. Next we walk along the reflecting pool that is leading up to the Lincoln Memorial, which we finally get to. And it is just amazing to just stand there and witness it. I would have loved to have stayed longer, but we were short on time, we were hungry, I was cold as my dumbass didn't get my coat from my car, and Bib's knees were hurting. So, we pressed onto the Viet Nam memorial. It's a 2 inch thick wall of black marble with all the names of those lost in the war. I would love to take my father there someday, if only to be there when he sees it. It's very emotional, and it's something I would like to experience with my dad.

We pass the last stone in the wall, and not ten feet is a trashcan with a squirrel sitting on the edge. We stop and look at it, then go on. Well, apparently, I'm made of gravy like my friend Sean says, as the little rodent hops out of the trash can and starts following us. Bib leans down and tries to touch it with a flyer she had picked up, and the little guy sniffs it, decides it isn't food and comes over to me. I hold my camera down to it, and want to take a really close picture of it. The squirrel grabs ahold of the camera, I get trigger happy, snap the pic way to close and start to pull my hands away from the scary monster that is obviously going to bite me. His grip is so tight on the camera that I lift him up about a foot before he drops down. Bib and I laugh about this and then start walking away. Well, our little buddy wasn't through with us yet. He runs up to me and jumps on my leg! And I mean, he is tail-level with my knee, so he's way up my leg! Well hell yeah I freak out! I freeze motionless but inside my heart is going a million miles. Since my last photo was the last in the camera, I don't have photographic proof, but it would have been a good one. He thankfully jumps down, and I breathe a sigh of relief, only to have him jump back on my leg, only this time he start climbing up. He gets about half his body length past the hem of my shirt before I start doing that crazy arm flapping/little scared girl whimper I'm so good at doing. He jumps down again and we quickly leave the Viet Nam memorial. I swear, that place is going to forever be in my mind as the place I got accosted by a rodent.

By this point it's getting late and we start heading back to the van. I have to use the restroom again (I know, I know) and I pick the absolutely wrong place to go into for me: The Smithsonian Museam. I have been wanting to go here for about 15 years, and doublely so ever since David and Erin visited a couple of years ago. There was no building in the world that I would have rather gone to, and that includes the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, than this one right here. I know we don't have much time, as we have to get back to Pennsylvania and get Bib's stuff, and probably the kids too. We go inside, Bib's knees by this point have all but quit working, and we use the facilties. We don't see anything but the huge elephant they have featured when you walk into the main entrance, so that was all I got to see of the Smithsonian. I'm there in D.C. for half a day and that was what I did. I spent a great day, albeit rushed, with my lovely girlfriend whom I love so very much, and got attacked by a squirrel, used the bathroom in the Smithsonian and that was it. It was time to leave town.

Another thing about D.C.: Traffic laws do not apply there, neither does common sense. We spent the better part of an hour and a half trying to get out of town. Granted, this was because I got us lost in the ghetto. Oh, and I do mean ghetto! This was a get out of the car and get shot kind of ghetto. I won't go into detail, as it would probably, ney, require me to cuss like a sailor telling you about my time trying to get back to the highway from the ghetto. I was so frustraited, and ranting and raving, and yet Bib was laughnig so much at my getting mad that it was keeping me from blowing my top right off. Let me just say this; Traffic is crazy there. Super crazy. I mean you have got to be freakin' nutty to understand, to even read, the traffic signs in D.C. It was pure torture. Indeed, I am glad to be back in Oklahoma. Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

Now, we get back to PA and I rent us a room as we're too tired to drive back that night. Bib goes to get her stuff by herself. I stay behind because I don't want to cause a problem with my being there, and I thought that Jamie would be nice and at least help her load up her van. I was wrong. With her sore knees, she loaded up a van full and I mean full of hers and the kids stuff. Not only that, but having to go down to the basement and get whatever Jamie 'forgot' to bring up. When she comes back, she has the kids and they happy to see us. They tell us later that Jamie had told them both that "momma had forgotten you and that she's never coming back, she's gone for good." This of course caused them to cry hysterically. Now tell me, what kind of dad tells his children something so cruel to make them upset on purpose? I'll tell you. A very mean person. He's done some terrible things, some so heinous that I will not go into them here on this blog. Let's just say he derserves to be locked up forever, then to be sent to hell for all of eternity. Oh yes, dear readers, we're talking B.A.D. bad. Real bad.

On our trip back, we get to laugh about the squirrel, talk about Christmas plans, sing songs and tell stories from our past. Brenden got sick and had taken some Dimetapp and was out like a light, so Mary was sitting up close to us, listening to Momma and I tell her stories about when we were little. She goes to sleep, as does Bib and I drive in silence through the night. I hit St. Louis with the van sleeping, and I see the giant Arch lit up from below. I take a picture with the spare camera we had in the van and keep on driving through. We make good time, switching off driving every few hours and make it home around 0500. We put the kids to bed, and get some sleep ourselves. We are beat, and we just spend the day there in my apartment. We cook some real food for once, not restaurant or fast food and it taste like manna from heaven.

We had a good time, even though the kids had the worst of it. They were cooped up in a van for 19 hours, had to stay with Jerkwad Supreme, then had to spend another 19 hours in a van. I'm sure not the best way to spend a week out of school. As for me? I was not at work. And I was with the woman I love and I enjoyed every minute of it. Except for the squirrel. I most certainly did not like that.