...I was cursing mostly myself this afternoon while sitting in a dead stop on GW circle, waiting for the assclowns who tried to beat the light to get out of my right-of-way-way, for having a few too many glasses of Proseco over a roast chicken this past week with some of the girls, when I casually said "hey, Casablanca is playing at Screen on The Green on Monday...why don't we swing by?" For several reasons. First and foremost, one does not swing by Screen on the Green...one arrives about 4.5 hours before it begins to get a seat somewhere in the middle, stretching one's blanket out past the hem to no avail as unwashed masses and their dirty feet close in on one's supposedly staked territory. And what can you say - "I called dibs on this grass?" Who calls dibs anymore? So to make it worse, it was the last Screen on the Green for the season, so the people who plan their summer around this crushing event are going to be taking up one's view of the screen with their crocodile tears and their waving arms as they beckon their friends and stinky associates who have arrived 35 minutes into the bloody movie. And the icing on the non-proverbial cake is that it's Casablanca, a film that I do not begrudge anyone for loving but hate when my tastes collide or even run paralell to hoi polloi.
So this soon moves from the first gear of my suggestion under the pull of sparkling wine to a full-on assault of our National Mall - Marian is dispatched at 5:30 to fend off the crowds, C. is to bring wine and assorted items from home (despite 20 people eventually showing up, I think we had maybe two knives amongst the crew) and I of course have volunteered for the dubious honor of going to Trader Joe's for light snacks. One, I'm awfully glad I never signed up for the military because I'd be that asshat that's all "into that foxhole? sure, I'll do it...anyone want me to bring them back a sewer rat while I'm down there?" Two, I don't even know what light fare would look like if it came up and bit me in the face, I'm a chronic over-doer (which even extends to applying Neosporin - if a dab works, half the tube'll really do the trick!) and three, are you kidding me, Trader Joe's right before Screen on the Green. The line went down the cereal aisle and across to the cheese section on the other side of the store. And everyone on the line was headed where I was headed. After those 8 years on line had passed, I got in my car and proceeded to sit and stew and curse all the people who were equally as dumb as me and hadn't hoisted their butts onto a metro seat.
Things looked up though as I got there and found a money spot literally behind the screen, wedged in between two bigger cars (yay, Miata). We had so much food and so much booze and so many people ended up showing up, and then I got a little teary eyed at the movie (and the annoying chick who was trying to take pictures of the screen during the last scene) - what the hell are you going to do with those pictures? "Oh honey, remember that time we watched that movie? Here's a photo of...the movie!" The irony is, if you love that scene so much, there are only a dozen or so movie posters commemorating it. But I digress. I walked away with Marian to the car, having hugged all the girls goodbye and traded this last bit of cheese for that half-bottle of sparkling lemonade thinking we should really try to do this more often.
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Traffic was your problem on the way to Casablanca. Ironic. Rick's main problem was all the damn traffic in Casablanca. Come to think of it, that was Casablanca's problem, too, along with the rest of North Africa around that time. Sometimes we all sound like Rick, like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart. Like traffic will get better, if we just tax the commuters...
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