Craptastic Weekend

PREVIOUSLY ON THE [CHERRY] RIDE: "...Richard and I leave tonight for a whirlwind trip to DC...it is going to be either the best weekend or the worst depending on how things go..."

To say the weekend was "the worst" would be the understatement of the year.

Let's back up a minute to set the scene: as Richard and I had just signed the lease on a new apartment, we decided to drive out to DC to pick up some furniture in my house there and drive it back on Sunday (in one of my parent's cars no less because they have a big one and I have a Mini, and it was going to cost close to $1K to rent a one way truck).

The trip started out fine - we drove all night Thursday without incident, arriving at my house in DC around 10am local time (about a 12 hour drive) Friday morning. We were tired, but relatively energized to collect and pack some belongings, as well as see a few friends.

From there things went terribly awry. After taking all our stuff from the drive (clothes, laptops, iPods, etc.) into the house and grabbing a quick 2-hour nap, we went back out to the car only to discover that it had been broken into (yes, right in front of my house and in broad daylight) in an attempted car theft. The steering column was completely damaged, the locks broken, the transmission shaft and switch busted and left for dead on the floor of the car.

That's what the cool kids like to call a Buzzkill. When shit like that happens, you're pretty much done. Since we no longer had a vehicle in which to load some furniture into, let alone drive, there are only a few things you can do: call the police to file a report, call the 'rents insurance agent, find a local car repair shop to have the car towed to, and call a tow truck to haul away the poor busted car. All of which we did (with varying degrees of success - more on that in a bit).

Since it was becoming clear that driving the car back to Chicago by Monday morning in time for us to get back to work was simply not in the realm of possibility, we also had to make arrangements to get home. Four options come to mind - rent a car (no thanks; we were no longer looking forward to driving 12 hours back to Chicago), take the Greyhound (we weren't warm to this idea either but looked into it -- 17 hours on a bus + $95 a piece), take the Amtrak (16.5 hours + $95 a piece) or fly (on ATA we could take a 1.5 hour flight and spend $95 a piece - clearly the best option). Note to Greyhound and Amtrak: Nobody is going to pay you $95 for a trip to Chicago when ATA will get you there a good 14 hours quicker for the same exact price.

Anyway, we book a flight back for Saturday evening (the soonest we could get the hell out of DC), and spend Saturday morning at the dealership repair shop in Arlington (where the car sits waiting to be repaired), talking to the insurance company, talking to both the DC and Arlington, VA police about trying to get a police report (which ultimately we do not get because DC Police are Total and Complete Morons) and having brunch with the Diplomat.

(Helpful side note: For those of you coming to DC as tourists/visitors, don't ever get yourself into a situation where you need to rely on the DC police for any help because if you do, you might as well fire up the Bat Signal -- you have just as much hope getting Batgirl to help you as you will from the police and that's the honest-to-god truth. But I digress...)

In a completely unrelated yet equally unfortunate incident, I also managed to lose my cell phone somewhere between leaving the house for the airport and checking my bag at National.* So by Saturday afternoon I am absolutely loving life. Isn't life swell?

So folks, I think it is universally acknowledged fact that we had a shitty weekend. And now, if the insurance company and car repair shop can mutually decide that the car should get fixed sometime in the next few days, Richard and I will be flying back out to DC this weekend to do it all again - get the car from the dealership, pack it up with all our shit, and drive it all the way back to Chicago. Good times.

I defy anyone out there to top their weekend story with mine.

* I could go on here to say that I actually blame ATA Airlines for losing my cell phone, but admittedly details as to how exactly the cell phone became lost are open to interpretation.