Here was the plan for today: head up to Silver Spring, and catch a triple feature of newish releases that I hadn't gotten around to seeing yet, but wanted to catch before the end of the year. Few people have the patience for double and triple features, so I tend to do this sort of thing by myself from time to time. I have no qualms about seeing movies alone, so it's win-win. I enjoy assembling start times and running times and putting together the puzzle of what movies there are that 1) I want to see and 2) can be seen all in a row with minimal downtime in between. It's most satisfying when I can estimate the time taken up by trailers before a movie, the time taken by credits after (which I like to watch, but can be skipped in a time pinch) and come up with one of those rare self-made doubles where I walk out of one theater and into another just in time for the next feature to start.
Today's schedule was to be
Precious at 11:10 at the Majestic,
An Education at 1:05 at the AFI, and then back over to the Majestic for
The Men Who Stare At Goats at 3:45. There was about a 40 minute break between features 2 and 3, but features 1 and 2 should have been timed perfectly for walking out of
Precious when the credits came up, a brisk walk over to the AFI, and then right in for the start of
An Education.
That was the plan. Metrobus and the Majestic had other ideas.
I checked
NextBus for the next bus up to Silver Spring when I got up, and had a nice comfy 25 minutes. As I got ready and checked periodically, it appeared the S4 was moving at a good clip and shaving time off the ETA. So with four minutes left, I went down the stairs and crossed the street. I checked the arrival again, and it said one minute. I looked down the street; I should be able to see the bus by now, but nothing. I glanced up north.
Two blocks up, there was my bus; it had passed by ahead of the GPS estimate. Dammit.
There are a lot of traffic lights in that stretch. I thought maybe, just maybe, I could catch it. So I took off, but never quite made it. I closed the gap to maybe 50 yards after sprinting after it for about 3/4ths of a mile, but as it took off from the last stop before the lights started widening apart, I knew there was no chance. I checked for the next bus; it would never get me to Silver Spring in time, so I flagged down a cab.
It was actually a nice ride with a personable cabbie who talked movies with me the whole way up to Silver Spring. "A good movie's gotta have a good plot, and a good ending," he told me, "those are the two most important things. What I can't figure is how some people can make a movie, and it'll just be so bad. Do they really think it's any good?" His favorite actors are Spencer Tracy and Sally Field, and I also found out that his favorite films are
Fried Green Tomatoes and
The Shawshank Redemption, the latter of which he felt was robbed by
Forrest Gump at the Academy Awards that year. I don't think he carries with him my bitter hatred of
Gump, but anyone who think that life is like a box of chocolates bullshit is even a little bit overrated is a friend of mine.
He dropped me off at the theater with plenty of time to spare and I walked up to a self-ticketing kiosk. But I couldn't find the 11:10 showing of
Precious. I glanced up at the listings above the window, and it wasn't there either. I pulled out my phone and checked Fandango, where it had been listed when I went to bed, less than 12 hours previously. Nothing. Apparently they had cancelled that screening at some point during the morning. Bastards.
There was nothing else that fit into the tight time slot before the 1:05 showing of
And Education, so I went into a restaurant, had a leisurely early lunch and read the
New Yorker I'd luckily brought along, and killed two hours.
The rest of the afternoon went as planned.
An Education was quite good, and
The Men Who Stare at Goats, which I'd heard was only mediocre, was barely that. But the S4 had one last trick in store.
I headed back down to the bus stop for the trip home, and as I waited to cross the street a block from the stop, I saw my bus round a corner and pass me. I took off running, but it didn't stop at my stop, as there was no one else there. But it stopped at a red light just beyond, and I knew there was another stop not far past, so I started another dead sprint for the bus.
And this time I made it. The light changed before I got there, but there were people getting on and off at the next stop, and as I reached the back of the bus, the last person had just got on. The doors closed, but the bus hadn't yet moved when I reached the door. There was even still a person at the podium paying their fare.
I knocked on the doors. The driver turned his head, looked me straight in the eye...and pulled away from the curb. If I hadn't been so shocked, I probably would have run a few steps after and kicked the motherfucker's door a few times, but I was honestly just immobile for a few seconds. As the bus pulled away, a few people on the inside looked at me in shock, and back up at the driver. DC bus riders are generally very good about telling the driver when someone is running for the bus, and drivers are generally very good about waiting or re-opening doors. Judging from the looks on the riders faces, they were just as confused about what they'd witnessed as I was.
I only had to wait five minutes for another bus, but it's just the principle of the thing. What the fuck is wrong with that asshole?
So that's my Sunday. Two sprints for buses I never caught, two movies in the place of three (one good, one not so much), and a relaxing last evening of the holiday weekend at home before it's back to the less literal sprint of the workweek tomorrow.
sleepy
chipper
stressed
sad
calm