Last week while I was in Northern Virginia on business I was invited to go with some friends to the Shenandoah Brewing Company in Alexandria to brew some beer.  Since brewing beer entails a lot of waiting and sampling the various products brewed at the facility we decided it would be prudent to take a cab there.  Anyone from that area can tell you that taking a cab is not as straight forward as it is in other parts of the contiguous United States.

First, you have to wait for the call from the cab driver saying, in barely intelligible English, that he can’t find your location.  After giving directions in the same dialect you use when conversing with tech support for your computer, or phone, or DVD player, or MP3 player, or…you get the idea, you’re picked up 1/2 hour past the scheduled time.  At that point you give the address of your destination, sit back and enjoy the ride while you wait for him to tell you you’re there when obviously you’re not because you’ve stopped in front of the one remaining vacant lot in the surrounding 300 square miles.  Eventually you realize you’re only about a mile from your intended destination so you begin to bark out directions, which should be fairly easy except that every time you say "turn left" the guy turns right.  Literally you scream, "No the OTHER left" and he gets all flustered and starts making these guttural click-click noises that mean something on the other side of the world.  Here they just mean you know the guys cussing you out but you don’t how, and since you just want to get where you’re going you start talking to him like he’s your four year old kid that you’ve just made cry.  "It’s okay Mr. Cab Driver, just take it easy and turn left up there in front of that really bright red sign…the one on your left…NO, THE OTHER LEFT.  No, not the green sign, the REEEEED sign.  Ah, there you go."  Thankfully he manages to avoid hitting the one person in Northern Virginia who walks from one place to another and deposits you at your destination a mere 45 minutes late. 

That’s exactly how our trip went last week.  We were mildly concerned about getting home because after brewing beer all night we weren’t so sure we’d know right from left and were pretty sure we wouldn’t be speaking intelligible English. Luckily another member of the group showed up late, stayed sober, and gave everyone a ride home.  Poor guy had to put up with us demanding a McDonald’s Drive-Thru and then being boxed in when a police cruiser in pursuit of a suspect screeched to a halt at the end of the drive-thru and continued the pursuit by foot. 

Having a front row seat to a live episode of COPS! reminded me why I don’t go out any more.  Well, that and the rather nasty headache I had the next day.  It ends up the stuff we were drinking had something like an 8% alcohol content, which means we were having a kind of 2-for-1 special on regular beer.  Add that to the fact that I’m no spring chicken and you have the recipe for a not-so-fresh feeling the next morning.

Despite my day-after discomfort I highly recommend the experience at Shenandoah Brewing.  After all, nothing says you HAVE to sample so much of the stuff and it is a really interesting process to watch and participate in.  If you have the choice use a designated driver since I’m not entirely confident you’ll get home if you take a cab.