When I acquired my Smartrip card (thanks, Dad!), I registered it through Metro so if I ever lost it I could be issued a new one, with the same balance at the time it was reported lost. I wrote my log-in information on a note card, and when it came to keeping that note card somewhere safe, I opted to put in a DVD case that I would forever associate with Washington, DC.
So, I put it in BlackHawk Down.
Which might seem odd, but I clearly remember visiting friends in Rosslyn for a few days when that movie was released on DVD and picking it up while visiting.
Flash forward to mid-June, and I’ve got boxes of stuff in my gigantic closet, and most of my furniture, disassembled for the move, has been reassembled. I’ve got big wicker baskets from Ikea that I’m using for DVD storage, and as I unpack my DVDs, I stop to click open BlackHawk Down to check for the registration note card: it isn’t there, and I figure I’ve lost it.
Cut to this Tuesday, December the 2nd, and I called out of both the Office and the Bookstore jobs because my neck was hurting considerably on account of a pulled muscle. I gingerly pawed through my stacks of DVDs and decided to watch “The American President”, a cute, funny, romantic film with a rousing call to arms (albeit, perhaps a little too lefty-on the gun thing for my taste). So I pop open the case, and what do I find? My Smartrip registration information. Rock on!
So I put the movie into the player and start watching. It’s probably been five years or longer since I’ve watched it. There are two exterior shots of downtown DC before the first scene set inside the GDC. The first is a wideshot of what, to me, appears* to be the intersection of L Street and Connecticut Avenue, looking south onto K Street (the second is a closeup of the GDC building). Now, I perked up at the first shot because I recognized it — I see it everyday! The bookstore I work at is just a block east.
So that was Tuesday. Cut to Wednesday night, and I’m working the Media Information desk at the Bookstore (the one east of the shot from early in the film). A call comes in from a guy looking for a copy of The American President which, I’m sad to tell him, we do not have in stock. I’m tempted to tell him that I’ve got a copy, and that our store is only a block away from that aforementioned shot, and I watched it yesterday, but I recommend he checks the Best Buy in Tenleytown instead (he tells me that was going to be his next call).
*Okay, I mean, I’m looking at in on a 22″ TV screen, and the film is widescreen so the image is much smaller, but I’m pretty sure that’s L and Connecticut.