squidpants

so i just learned an important lesson: don't return your rental car at 4 am. i went up to new hampshire for the primaries with a friend and we had rented a car, since my car is a piece of crap and probably would not make the trip. We left NH at about 4 pm and I got back into DC at about 3 am, about 4 hours longer than mapquest, but we got lost a couple times and there was a traffic jam in new york and we had to make some stops like Friendly's and the New Hampshire State Liquor Store, which is pretty cool. so i figured I would drop off the people riding back with me, unload my stuff at my house, bring the car back to the rental car place at National Airport, and i'd catch a cab back to my house since the Metro train doesn't run that late. i thought this would work best because otherwise i'd have to park in DC and i'd probably get a ticket, and even if I didn't I'd have to wake up in a couple hours anyway, drive it back, and then take the train from the airport directly to work. So a couple of hours away from DC we called the Avis place to make sure they accepted late night returns, and they did, so that was good. after dropping everybody off I got to the Avis place and had to wake up the guy working there to return my keys, which was kind of weird. the Avis place was at the very end of the airport, so i went into the airport building and followed the signs for "motorized walkway to terminal," because i figured it'd be faster and i was tired from driving. so i found this walkway, which was a pretty surreal place, it was a brand new yellow hallway with no doors or windows, only the motorized walkways. there was no one around and the only thing I could hear was the speaker repeating "caution: walkway is ending", which would get louder and then softer as i reached the end of one walkway and got on the other. so that was pretty funny. i followed the signs to "ground transportation" and when i was about 100 feet from the door I saw a taxi drive by. i figured there would be more when i got there so i didn't run out to get it. when i got out i didn't see any taxis, but i figured was at the smaller old terminal where the smaller airlines flew, so there probably wasn't anybody around. i decided to head for the main terminal and get a taxi there. so i went back in and walked around. however, this terminal was pretty gigantic, it used to be the entire airport before the new main building was built, so i walked through these deserted hallways and the main room that looked like the zeppelin port from indiana jones and thought about what the people watching the security cameras must be thinking, since there was still nobody around but me, trudging through the airport in my heavy jacket. so i kept walking and got to another really long hallway, literally so long i couldn't see the end. of course, i also need new glasses. i went down that, and luckily i didn't have any bags, and got to the main terminal. it was pretty cool to be there, i thought, because i could look the length of the terminal and couldn't see anybody except a zamboni driver and a person mopping the floor, and it was almost totally silent. so i went downstairs to the ground transportation and didn't see anything except for a police car. i waited a minute or so and went back in, where i saw two maintenance workers. i asked if i could catch a cab and they said "no, not until 6 or so when planes land, you gotta call one. go look up taxicab in the phonebook" and they pointed at the pay phone. so i thought "shit" and went over to the payphone. my cell phone was back in my house, but it was dead anyway because i had forgotten to charge it. So i went to the phonebook and turned to T and didn't see taxicab. I thought "i hate phone books, they always call stuff by the weirdest names you would never think of." But after flipping to "cab" and "limousine" and not finding anything, i turned back to the T's and realized that all of the taxicab pages had been torn out. Because no one would need to call a cab from an airport. I walked out to find another phone with a book and I saw one of the maintenance people from before and I told her the taxicab pages had been torn out. She laughed and looked at me, and i laughed too, since it was pretty ridiculous. I asked her if there was another phone book and she said there were lots up and down the terminal. I was at one end, so I started towards the other, looking at the phones for books. I then noticed that all of the clocks in the airport were set to different times, and not just a minute or two, some were an hour apart, which I thought was pretty funny. I passed about 5 banks of phones and walked through most of the deserted terminal, which was actually pretty nice, before i saw one with a phone book and went over. this one did have the pages for taxicab, so I dialed the first company I had heard of and put my credit card in the slot. it beeped and said "insert 50 cents" so i put the card in every other way, but it still didn't work, so i fished around and found two quarters and put them in. I called the cab company and got the "all operators are busy helping other customers, please hold" message and I thought "shit, maybe the dude is asleep or having phone sex or something," but then somebody picked up. She said "what's your address" and i said "national airport" and she asked when I wanted to go and i said "as soon as possible." then she asked "what's your address?" and i said "I dunno the address, it's National Airport" and she said "oh, you're AT national airport. i don't know if we pick up there, hold on." then she said they didn't. so i said, "do you know anybody who does" and she said "no, sorry." so that sucked. i found another cab company that said national airport in their ad and searched for money, but i only found 25 cents and 3 New Hampshire toll booth tokens, which coincidentally cost 75 cents to buy. I dialed 0 and asked to make a credit card call but the lady said they didn't take credit cards, so then I tried to call the next cab company collect, but I got a message saying they didn't accept collect calls, which is probably a pretty smart idea. I didn't think of dialing 10-10-220 or whatever. whoever builds those payphones should make cars or something, because i knocked the hell out of the receiver and it didn't break. but I thought I had seen a change machine, so I flagged down the zamboni guy who said immediately "no english" and started to drive away. I attempted to ask him in spanish if there was a machine to turn my dollars into coins and I guess it made enough sense because he thought a bit and looked around and said no, then he called to some other people and they said no too. so by this point i was pretty damn pissed off, I probably looked like a crazy person stomping through the terminal. i went out to the front again and didn't see any cabs, then i went back in and saw what looked like an airport administrative type and asked if there were a change machine, and he said no. I told him my story and he said he didn't have any change, and the guy at 7-11 had even let him pay less than the amount because he didn't have any, but that cabs usually start coming by 4:30 to let people out, and that if I went upstairs I could probably flag one down. so i went upstairs and saw a couple police cars and one of those blue buses with a guy unloading. so i waited awhile for a cab and decided to ask him if he could go to Adams Morgan, where i lived, and he thought for awhile then said ok. I asked him how much and he said 10, which was probably a lot less than the cab would have been. so after about an hour and a half of walking around the deserted rental car place and airport I got a ride home. Hopefully this has been an interesting and informative story, and has taught you not to be like me and return rental cars really fucking late at night. and hopefully this wasn't boring and makes up for me not posting anything in awhile. maybe i will post funny shit from the trip later.