just kidding DC i love you and i'll never leave you again

I volunteered to help a friend move on Saturday for nothing more than the promise of driving the U-haul. There was something about the thought of commanding a 10-foot tall monster truck, reeking of gas fumes, with plastic seats and hopefully sans AC that just. felt. right. So we metro all the way out to pick up the truck in West Hyattesville, which I think is somewhere in South Carolina, because we exit the station and trek past the kiss n’ride and find ourselves on a deserted state highway across from an auto shop and a liquor store called “the Smoky Hut.” My companion asks a shirtless man for directions to the U-haul place on Chillum Road (no, really) as I look on in terror and pray for a swift death.

Much like the DMV and the post office, U-haul is one of those havens of universally shitty service. You could be the only one there, and you’d still have to wait 45 minutes for the woman at the counter to glance up from her game of pong. So while my friend waits in line, I perch atop a stack of packing boxes to paint my nails and conspicuously eavesdrop on a pair of sweaty yokels in the next row over, haggling over a tasty cake. “I till yew whut,” the sunburned, obese one in the turquoise man-tank drawled, “We’ll mud-wrestle for it.” He didn’t actually say that. In my head he did. I couldn’t really hear.

A year later they give us the keys and inform us that our truck should be waiting right out front. We swing the door open and stand before the most beautiful site I’ve ever seen. Swathed in heavenly light, a rust-covered jalopy, front left corner of the hood crushed in, driver-side door open and radio blaring Reggaeton, beckons me hither. Mother of god, she was glorious. I fix my scrunchie and run my hands over the torn duct-taped wheel, tip the seat back 45 degrees, and peel the eff out. We stopped for slurpees on the way back to town, and I died of happiness.

Here is some other cool shit I did this weekend in DC that you can do too:

Ate a delicious frittata at brunch at Dos Gringos in Mt. Pleasant.

Ate a delicious hand-dipped donut covered in chocolate chips and peanuts (“The Sundae”) at the Fractured Prune on P St.

Drank whisky and saw the Sea and Cake at the Black Cat.

Drank coffee and utilized free wi-fi at Sparky’s on 14th St.

Listened to crazy Australian pop music at the Architecture in Helsinki show at the 9:30 Club.