Adventures from the Past

I think I should start with some examples of adventure:


There have been some travelling adventures:

Such as the time A$ Ajen and I took a bus to the Tyson's corner mall to shop. We walked 30 minutes from a remote busstop in February (my hair froze on my head) to the mall only to find that it was all of the most expensive and unaffordable stores. We each bought something to pass the time, none of us wanting to admit that we did not know how we were going to get home.
No one we called was able to give us a ride. We did not know where the bus was going, and we missed the last one anyway because we split up. We ended up taking a taxi with another woman, where I lost my new scarf, and waited 20 minutes for a metro to take us home.


There have been some awesomely unexpected adventures:

Like the time I went to the National Gallery for an English assignment. Looking at the medieval art only took an hour and the weather was nice, so I just started walking down the mall expecting to turn right to get to Metro Center eventually. I passed all the other museums, then the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. It was quite an incredible late fall afternoon, and my new iPod was making everything fantastic.
Soon, however, I realized I was far past Metro Center as I could see the Kennedy Center looming in the distance. Knowing my adventure was only partly underway, I called my boy AFG the LD and A$ to find out where I was in relation to that metro station. I discovered I was at least 20 blocks too far away from where I meant to be, but decided to walk anyway.
On the way, I passed a LOT of Cosi's restaurants. I also ended up passing the WHITE HOUSE. It was late enough in the year that it was already decorated for Christmas. (This was, of course, before I got a camera.) I made it home before dark. And loved every minute of that day.


And ever since graduation there have been adventures in real life:

Because I work mainly in customer service (details are for another post), I meet many many strange and incredible people. Not all of them good. My favorite crazy shopper story from the Folger Shakespeare Library Gift Shop was also one of the most annoying days of my life. She came in AFTER closing, meaning the register was off and closed. I explained that we were closed for the day, but she walked right over the velvet rope saying "Oh I'll just write you a check!" You have to pick your battles, and this was not one I felt up to.
So I let her in, thinking she knew exactly what she was looking for. Nope. She started eyeing everything, pausing to look over each item. I needed to get going asap, so I asked if there was anything I could help her find. "Do you have any books of Shakespeare? In English?" I paused to allow the stupidity of this questiong sink in, giving my brain ample time to wrap around it and hope she knew how asanine she was. She didn't. "You know, REAL English." I turned my face away so she could not see my incredulous expression.
I went into the book room and handed her Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. "This is the best we have," I told her. "It's in REAL English, right? Not in Old English, is it?" I paused again, but chose not to tell her that Chaucer is Olde Englishe, and Shakespeare is Middle English. Modern English is a bastardization of too many languages including those. There is not REAL English. Anyway, I told her it was as close to modern English as you could get at our store.
"Shall I ring you up?" "Well I just want to look around a bit more," she said. I explained to her that we were indeed closed so I couldn't allow her to persuse at leisure. "Is there anything I can help you find?" "What's a good gift?!" she trilled, "what's a good gift, what does everybody get anybody as a gift? What's a good gift?" I told her that the mugs were quite popular. " 'The first thing we do let's kill all the lawyers' HAHAHAhaa that's too funny, that's so true you know because -" But I didn't pay attention to why we should kill all the lawyers as I was ringing her up by hand and preoccupied with math.
"Do you have any quote books?" she said in my face. In reply I lifted the slim volume called vaguely "Quotes from Shakespeare" and handed it to her. "That's another $1.50," I said, "would you like to add it to your purchase?" She flipped through it and exclaimed "But they're all in old English! Don't you have any in REAL English?" I did not hide my disdain anymore, not after being forced to stay an extra half hour at work when I had too many lives going on at that time. "No. There are no REAL English quotes. If there were, then they wouldn't be QUOTES, would they?" I finished ringing her up, charged her her $10 and she left.


That's a sampling of my adventures thus far. There are plenty more from my past that I will post on slow adventure days. Most of my adventures come from the stupidity of others or my own naivete. I hope they are enjoyable!