Adventure, Part I

After a flurry of planning, mapping, conversing by phone with a person whose voice struck me as surprisingly soft-spoken, and generally running around like a maniac, I headed north on I-95 at 9:30am, both nervous and hopeful.  One quick appointment and then off to meet a perfect stranger for lunch.

I knew I was in trouble when I rounded the corner of the HOV on-ramp and saw brake lights stretching off into Kingdom Come.  I sighed and braked.  For once in my life I'd actually built some extra time into my schedule.  Everything was going to be fine.  I inched along, watching cars in the regular northbound lanes fly past, and thought about how long I'd waited for this day.

Since July 31, 2008, to be precise.

I started getting nervous.  What if our meeting didn't go according to plan?  What if the perfect stranger couldn't find the meeting place?  What if we weren't the people we had represented ourselves to be?  What if, ACK, we didn't have anything to say to one another?

Just as the traffic started picking up, my gas light went on.

Good grief, I thought.  Of all the times to be out of gas...  There was nothing I could do.  I was, quite literally, stuck in the HOV lanes.  Surrounded by the stop-and-go traffic, trapped by the cement walls that define the lanes, absolutely, completely, stuck.

I did as I always do when forced out on the perilous roads of Northern Virginia.  I begged God for mercy.

Please get me to this appointment on time.  Please don't let me run out of gas.  Please, please let this meeting go well.

I crept along, sweating and miserable.  The clock ticked, and ticked, and ticked, and the minute hand pushed right on past my appointed time at the exact moment I realized there was no Exit 5 off-ramp from the HOV lanes.  I was finally going the speed limit as I gave Exit 5 a little wave and continued on to the Pentagon.

I gave the WH a little wave as I sped through the Pentagon parking lot, wove around aimlessly and back out to I-395 Southbound, thankful for the minor miracle that got me there without incident and without running out of gas.

I hit the King St. exit and raced toward my destination.  I passed it somehow, and swung around in a crazy move that would have stressed Fran out.  I passed it again, reversed again and finally arrived at my destination.

Thirty minutes late.