I had been working temporarily in the DC area near the Pentagon for a few weeks. While there is an excellent mass transit system in the city, the apartment I was living in was far enough away from the Metro stations that it would take almost as much time commuting to the nearest station as it took me to go ahead and drive into work. I guess if I knew anyone living near me I might carpool, but with the odd hours I worked it was difficult, if not impossible, to work out a schedule with anyone. Besides, with such odd hours I'd not had a chance to really meet anyone who lived near me.
While at work I shared a multitude of traffic horror stories with almost everyone I ran into. Now with the gas prices going up and up, the stories seemed to lean away from the humorous, idiot driver stories to odd and interesting attempts as saving gas. We would discuss and often argue over the merits of gas saving techniques.
"Yeah, I come in the Washington Memorial and then coast down the hills," one of the guys would say.
"But then you have to turn around and climb hills too, and going uphill your burning more gas, probably more than what you save coasting," another would reply.
"Not if I kick the engine on a just the right time to preserve momentum."
"Momentum shmomentum, you're still burning more gas going back uphill than you would if you just took a more level roadway like Sixty Six. The idea is to pace yourself so you don't hit the brakes."
"How do you do that in traffic?"
The discussions often carried on until lunch, with statements shouted back and forth over work cubicles or picked up during restroom or smoking breaks. I happened to be headed to lunch one day, passing a couple of smokers standing just outside the building.
"I take the High Occupancy Vehicle lanes every day and avoid all the headaches," a guy in a red shirt said between puffs on his cigarette.
"I'd like to do that, but I don't know anyone I can carpool with," the other smoker replied.
"Man, you don't need a carpool, all you have to do is slide by lot seven and pick up a slug."
"A slug?"
"You know, the people who hang out at the lot looking for a ride. They give you that extra body in the car in exchange for a ride out into the suburbs. That way you can drive in the carpool lanes. You end up dropping them near a bus stop or parking lot outside the city and they go from there."
My eyes began burning from the smoke so I headed off to lunch, but not without making a note to myself to look into these slugs. It seemed to have some of the same drawbacks I had always avoided hitchhikers over, but then again, most of these people would be either working at or around the Pentagon.
I decided to give Lot Seven a try that afternoon. I figured the reason they were called slugs was that they didn't try to share the gas costs, but still, you had to save some money just driving in the carpool lane. If not money, you'd certainly save time.
That afternoon I found myself driving over to Lot Seven looking for a slug to share the ride home with. Quickly realizing there was a bit of a pattern there, with the drivers displaying small signs on their dashboards indicating their final destination driving only to specific groups of people. Utterly confused with the entire set up, I moved over to an area where a number of people were huddled in an area that very few cars visited.
Pulling up to the curb, I opened my window and said, "I'm heading north up the Washington Memorial then over toward Bethesda."
"Jack, Jack, that's you," one of the guys shouted out to another small group of men standing near one of the bus stops.
Jack jogged over from another small group huddled near a bus stop and moved to the car window. He peeked in and said, "Wow, saved at the last minute. I was ready to give up and take the bus."
He was obviously summing me and my car up, as he fumbled with a briefcase, but apparently I made the grade because he grabbed the door and climbed inside. He was a fairly small man, perhaps 5'5" or 5'6" with a very slender build. Neatly trimmed black hair framed a thin face with a prominent nose. The hint of facial hair seemed to soften his appearance, making him perhaps more pretty than rugged.
"If you go near Old Georgetown Road, just off 495, that'd be great. There are plenty of places between here and there," he said.
I nodded, wondering what he meant by plenty of places between here and there. Easing my car down the drive, I carefully pulled onto the Jeff Davis Highway, quickly working my way to the right so I could catch the Memorial. Once there we could hit take advantage of some of the carpool lanes.
A few minutes into the drive, Jack reached his hand out to me and said, "You know, we really haven't properly met, I'm Jack, Jack Anderson, right now working on the Inner Corridor."
Knowing that, for security reasons, the Inner Corridor was all I needed to know at this time, I took his hand and said, "I'm Jason Tulbridge, I'm with the contractor working the security upgrades."
"Oh interesting," he said, knowing not to ask anything else about it, again for security reasons.
"Yeah, even though it's not really classified, we're not supposed to talk much about it," I said.
"You know between security upgrades and beautification, must be half the city is under construction."
"And I think the other half is at least in some stage of design for construction," I answered, basically making small talk.
We drove a bit further in silence, while both of us took in the scenery as we sped down the carpool lane. It was a relaxing drive, to be able to pretty much maintain the speed limit instead of the start, stop, slow down and go chaos of the main traffic lanes. I figured I'd certainly be trying this trick again.
Looking closer at Jack, I noticed his dark, almost black eyes. They offer an odd contrast, the eyes so dark and intense and the rest of him a bit softer. I thought to myself, "I bet the women line up for this guy."
"There's a rest area not too far ahead with a few secluded places, want to stop there?" Jack asked.
Figuring he needed to use the facilities there, I answered, "Sure," taking the exit and driving into the parking area. The main building was nestled among some trees and the parking areas spread out around it, arranged in a number of small clusters. I noticed a few of the clusters close to the building had only a single car parked there and I began to head to the cluster closest to the building.
"Here, park over here," he said, pointing to a couple of spaces some distance away from the building and toilet area. There were no other cars in the cluster, which was surrounded by trees.
A bit confused, I pulled into one of the spaces, and leaned my seat back figuring he'd get out and head up to the toilet area. Instead, when I felt his hang gently brush my thigh I looked over at him and said, "You're not going..."
When his hand froze, we both immediately realized we'd made a mistake. "You didn't know about the line at the lot?"
