RIGHT GATE, WRONG AIRPORT
Like any good boyfriend, a Northeast man arrived at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport early to pick up his paramour from a cross-country flight.
In fact, he was so early that he circled the airport a dozen times in his silver Honda Accord because airport officials wouldn’t let him park outside baggage claim.
At 10:30 p.m., the flight from Los Angeles arrived. “Where are you?” asked his girlfriend.
“Outside Gate 4.”
“I don’t see you.”
“Weird, I don’t see anybody at all near that gate — It’s completely dark,” the man said. When rounding the airport again, the driver had an epiphany. “You’re at Reagan, right?”
“Dulles,” she snapped.
“I’m a bad boyfriend,” he responded before beginning the 40-minute trek to the suburban Virginia airport to beg for forgiveness.
METRO ETIQUETTE
During one of the beastly hot days last week, Mark Veith watched a standoff between two local women and an out-of-town mom and son.
The 62-year-old from Rockville saw the women drop their jaws at the tourist son, who carried a fully melted cup of chocolate ice cream — a big no-no on Metro. As the train jerked into the station, the brown liquid was scattered on the boy, his clothes and the floor.
The two women, huffing and rolling their eyes, loudly scolded the mom about Metro etiquette as they exited the train.
Veith wondered what the mom and son would say of D.C. natives when they returned to Ohio, or wherever.
THE EARTH IS ROUND
Months had passed since a Northwest D.C. man had moved into a new apartment, but he still couldn’t admit a simple fact: His home was in Petworth.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with Petworth. But the 24-year-old decided he preferred the ring of “Columbia Heights,” and, to be fair, the one-bedroom was situated between the two Metro stations.
But it was clearly closer to Petworth. After hearing this claim for the umpteenth time, a co-worker decided to pull up his pad on Google Maps. “Look,” she said, “you’re a block or two out of Pleasant Plains. You’re blocks from the Petworth Metro station. You’re blocks from Columbia Heights, too, but you’re clearly closer to Petworth.”
But the man wouldn’t budge. “This is a flat map,” he replied. “The real world bends. It’s round. I live in Columbia Heights.”
JELLYFISH BLUES
Temperatures reaching 106 degrees can make people do some crazy things.
Over the weekend, for example, a young family that lives near Solomons Island in St. Mary’s County, Md., were looking to cool off, so they went down to their dock on the Patuxent River for a quick dip in the water.
What they saw horrified them: hundreds of pulsating jellyfish, each with long tentacles looking for something, or someone, to sting. Seems they have arrived early this year. So the family jumped on their boat and sped into the Chesapeake Bay about two miles downstream.
In the Bay, they saw fewer “jellies.” So with the dad on lookout, the two children, ages 5 and 7, jumped in for a quick swim. Soon, of course, came the jellies, and with a shout from the dad, the kids climbed out, the older cheering, “We beat the jelly, we beat the jelly!”
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