Rewind

I was told by my roommates, that I absolutely had to blog about my last day in DC, or else they'd never forgive me. So, to start, I'll just tell you a little bit about them. I had 5 roommates. That's more than I've ever had in my life, and I was a little worried, once I found out that it was co-ed, that it would turn into a gnarly season of The Real World. Luckily, we were all normal people and not the psychotic lunatics they pick to go on those shows.

So, like I was saying, my five roommates. I'll start with the girls. There were three of them. Biz was the first one I met. She was very sweet, and cheery with a zest for life, which immediately set my heart at ease about living there. Afterwards, I met Liz and Kay. Liz was hilarious! She was always saying outrageous things that made the rest of us laugh. Kay was adorable. She had a completely bizarre sense of humor, but we all loved her because of it. As for the men, there was Jason, the University of Illinois grad, who I seriously believe would sleep until 4 in the afternoon every day if he could, and there was Guido, our token Italian. He brought most of our cultural diversity into the house. There were nights when the English speakers were most definitely the minority in the house.

So, anyway, on my last day in DC, all of the roommates that were left (Guido was traveling with his girlfriend, and Kay had already left to go home) went to this fantastic little cafe to have an early lunch. We had decided to meet up at 11. The cafe was conveniently located only a short walk away from our house. Even more convenient, was the fact that right next door was a FedEx store. After living in DC for three months, I had accumulated random junk that just would not for the life of me fit into my two ever-shrinking suitcases. My kind boss had given me a couple boxes that had once been used to ship catalogs of ships plans. That saved me from having to buy overpriced boxes from FedEx. I packed two boxes nice and full of all kinds of random stuff. One of them even has a hardhat, that I used during a tour of the construction site.

I had enlisted Biz to help me carry the boxes to the store, cause they were too unwieldy for me to carry alone. So, we hike down several blocks with these ridiculous boxes and finally make it to the FedEx store. We walk in and there's only one other customer, so I begin to fill out the address form for my boxes. Since both boxes were going to the same address, I was able to fill out only one form. I even asked the clerk about it, and he said it was fine to write them both on one form.

I bring my first box to the register, hand the form over to the clerk, and place the box on the scale. He begins to type the information into the computer, but suddenly stops typing and furrows his brow. I suppressed a small sigh as he looked pleadingly toward the manager, the only other employee in the store at the time. She was loudly discussing shipping something with another customer on the phone, completely unable to assist Clerk X fix the problem.

After several minutes, she put the other customer on hold and showed him what to do. No sooner had she gotten back on the phone then the poor man was stuck again. By this time, there were at least three customers standing behind me using up their lunch break waiting on this incompetent employee.

After at least 25 minutes of this poor man getting occasional assistance from the phone-ridden manager, he finally solved the problem and handed me my receipt. I thanked him and glanced down at the receipt. I had been charged for only one box. I handed it back to him and said that there was only one box on the receipt, and I could hear the collective groan from the whole room of now 6 customers waiting behind me. Finally the manager got off the phone for good and took over my sale. She had both boxes done in less than 3 minutes. Finally, after over half an hour in this awful store both of my boxes were en route to Texas, and I was able to enjoy a delicious lunch with my roommates. All of whom, by that point were tapping their toes impatiently waiting for me to finish.

We happilly pranced from the FedEx store, an establishment that I will avoid from here on out, to Le Bon Cafe. We all ate delicious sandwiches, and Jason entertained us with his excellent conversational skills until we finally headed home.

Biz and Jason stood arm in arm like proud parents and waved goodbye to me from the front porch as I drove off in the cab. I was sad to leave, but excited to come home at the same time. It was a good day, and I was glad that I was able to spend it with my roommates.