Day 84 of 100

“Put your hands on the car!”

I lived in a bunch of different places when I lived in Washington, DC right after college. The first place was a professor’s house in Takoma Park, MD that we had for the summer.

Then I lived just south of Silver Spring on 14th Street NW where I rented the top floor from a young couple from Sacramento, CA. I remember that I had a water bed and they were the nicest two people I had met in DC.

For awhile I lived at 1500 Massachusetts right off Dupont Circle in a gigantic apartment building. My studio was just big enough for the water bed (I wasn’t getting rid of that thing) and the kitchen was in a closet. The best thing about that place was I could walk to work at the higher education non-profit I worked.

One night some friends had a party in a room at the Howard Johnson’s around the corner, and I spent many an hour drinking many a drink and playing many drinking games. It must have been about 4 am when I finally decided to head home, and by head I meant stumble.

I had to cut through a side street to get to my apartment, and as I was crossing the street, I heard car brakes screech as it swung to park along side me.

“Hands on the car!” a male voice screamed.

“Huh?” I replied.

“Put your hands on the car!” He repeated.

I turned and put my hands on the car.

“Don’t move!” yelled another male voice.

“Ok,” I mumbled.

To this day, I am not sure if they had guns but my muddled memory seems to remember them as armed. At the bare minimum, I knew to do nothing.

“Where do you live?” they demanded.

“Down about five blocks,” I replied as I looked up and saw my window across the street.

Suddenly I felt one hand in my left pocket, and one hand in my right. In my left was a crumbled wad of three dollars, and in my right were my keys. This was the early 2000’s, so I had no cell phone.

“Can I have my keys back?” I asked.

They threw my keys on the ground, jumped in the car and drove off. I quickly grabbed my keys, stumble ran across the street and entered the building.

My heart didn’t stop pounding even once I got to my 15th floor apartment. In fact, it was beating so fast laying on the water bed was really a bad idea. That night I slept on the cool floor and counted each one of my blessings.

And, that, my friends, is how I got mugged for three dollars in Washington DC.