I don’t know why I’m so excited: Giant has beer, too. Although judging from the signs, this might be of the variety Giant doesn’t tend to stock.

Note to self: next time folks come down from Baltimore, I’ve got to get them to bring me some Boh. I’ve only got one can left!

I spent several hours this afternoon at The National Zoo with my friend Charissa, who drove down from Baltimore and got to ride on the Metro and have an adventure with the mile-long escalator at Woodley Park.

I escorted her most of the way back to her car, but departed at Columbia Heights to make my “dry grocery” run to Target. Okay, first: Target’s getting alcohol! In the grocery section, an aisle has been roped off with “aisle being revamped for your shopping pleasure” or some such, and the aisle already has price stickers and markers for BEER. WINE. Hard Liquor? I hope so!

But the reason I’m writing this post is not Charissa’s visit, and it’s not even the alcohol coming to Target.

When I exited Target and was making my way back to the Metro stop (it’d probably be faster to take a bus back to Cleveland Park, but I’m still figuring out the bus routes — bus to Georgetown? Yes. L2 north and south on Connecticut? Sure! — and I’m not quite sure which I’d need), I noticed a guy and his kid. The guy was carrying a box with a 19″ TV (or computer monitor) in it. The kid was carrying a box of stuff. I really didn’t pay them too much attention, although when the dad said, “…we’ll just lug this stuff on the Metro”, I smiled because, after all, that’s how I got my own TV home.

Anyway, so flash forward a few minutes, and I’m on the platform, waiting for the train. I’m actually waiting right against the stairs when I hear a commotion, and hear the dude with the TV say, “Hey, buddy, move: I’m handicapped and I need the rail to get down!” This was followed a few seconds later by an: “Asshole!”

I didn’t see what happened, and I didn’t pay attention until I heard that voice raised in anger. But a couple of things occurred to me: first, no one had just been lounging around on the stairs a moment earlier when I’d walked down them, so this was probably one of those awkward encounters when two people walk into each others’ paths and then apologize and alter course so that they’re still in conflict, and then both stop and one waves the other forward and both sort of chuckle in embarrassment.

Now, wait: you’re handicapped and your kid isn’t carrying the TV? You’re handicapped and you didn’t take the elevator? More to the point, you have a random, innocent encounter with some guy on the stairs and feel the need to call him an asshole because he didn’t immediately recognize that a middle aged guy lugging a flat-screen TV down a flight of stairs is handicapped?

Granted: maybe he said something to you that I didn’t hear. But when he said “Asshole!”, I was thinking, “My thoughts on you too, buddy.”