My first time...

As a slug...
For those of my friends who are not from the DC metropolitan area, there are many roads into DC that require 2 or more passengers in a vehicle (unless you're a hybrid car) during rush hour. Some people prefer not to take public transportation and want to drive themselves into the city pick up "slugs" in the suburbs. Slugs are random strangers you find somewhere in the suburbs (when headed in) or in the city (when you're leaving) who take up the space in your car so you can drive in the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes.

I have been taking the Metro bus and Metro rail into the city for a couple of months now. But today, I missed my bus by two minutes (damn traffic light!) and a small car pulled up at the bus stop with a sign in the window (Farragut West or Rosslyn- 1 or 2 riders). I opened the passenger side door and asked the young-looking woman (at most 32 yrs old) if Farragut West was on the Orange or the Red (I always confuse it with Farragut North which is on the Red as I've been reminded today). I'm not exactly sure how it is she could drop me off at either Rosslyn (which is in VA) or Farragut West (in DC). But I got in for Farragut West.

So as not to be accused of being a "bad slug," I pulled out my crossword and said nothing during the entire commute. (I mean, this isn't a carpool where you know the people and can be all chatty, this is just business) I didn't move the seat back, which I should have because her compact car didn't exactly fit my 6'3'' frame easily. But I just kept my head down looking at the crossword so as not to hit my head on the sunroof and and put my gloves on my knees so I wouldn't knock into her dashboard with them too hard during brakes. To top it all off, the crossword was friggin' hard and I could not concentrate with her changing radio stations every thirty seconds (none of them were any good, which is why I partly understood the channel-flipping, but she just kept rotating through the crap like it was going to get better, I guess that's called optimism).

I'm not a genius, but I can usually get at least 95 percent done with a crossword during a 30-minute Metro rail ride. I wasn't even halfway done with this one. So, just in case she was watching me (which I doubt she was), I started filling boxes with random letters on the newspaper. Why I even care what the driver thought of my crossword abilities, I do not know. Apparently, I'm just like that.

After a short walk from the drop-off point to work, I've made it through my first morning as a slug. Will I do it again? Maybe. But I'm moving the seat back next time... and bringing a back-up easy-to-do children's crossword puzzle, just in case...