The $10 dance

You might think that the highlight of our girls weekend in Washington DC was the Washington Monument (love it) or the WWII Monument (peaceful) or the Vietnam Memorial (overwhelming). Or lunching with a great friend (miss you already!). Or attending Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (amazingly beautiful). Or dinner at Fisher's and Farmers (yummy Blackberry Julep). Or cupcakes from Baked and Wired (double yum!)

But you, my friends, would be wrong. The very best part of the girls weekend was watching Allison open a can of whoop ass on the parking attendant.

The signs overhead as you drive down into the lot and on the attendant booth clearly state it is a flat rate of $10 after 7 pm. And while there was small sign at the front of the lot that said otherwise, we were going with the posted $10 rate. When we pulled up to the booth to exit, the attendant tried to charge Allison $18. Ohhhh, she wasn't having it! The sign directly in front of us said $10 and she was prepared for a fight to the death for her $8. She has always been a particularly thrifty gal.

When the barely English-speaking attendant kindly gestured for Allison to step out of her vehicle to debate the matter, it was ON. Never mind that she whacked her knee on the door as she got out, she was on her A game (no pun intended). As Mandi put it: He doesn't know what he's in for.

So as we watched from the vehicle in awe, our baby sister gave a rousing, gesture-filled argument to the poor attendant. Please don't misunderstand. She didn't use any foul language or foul gestures, but it was wildly entertaining, nonetheless! We couldn't hear her words, but we could pretty much gather how the conversation was going by the way she put her hands on her hips, then gestured from one sign, to the next, to the next, sort of like a "first down" signal in football. Hands back on the hips. It was starting to get a little rhythm to it.

Gesture, gesture, hands on hips.
Hand chop, hand chop.
Gesture, gesture, hands on hips.
Hand chop, hand chop.
Head nod, head nod.
Shake, shake, shake (her head).
Repeat.

Well, I've always been a big fan of musical theater so in my mind it was starting to look like
gesture, gesture, cha cha cha.
Hand chop, hand chop, jazz hands.

I desperately wanted her to break into the Charleston and then resume her discussion just to see if he would notice. A little more discussion and then a hip bump or two. Who knows, he might have joined in? It would have been even better if we had gotten out of the car as her back up dancers. Do-whop. Do-whop.

But instead she finished her discussion, returned to the car, and reported that the attendant was getting his boss on the phone. He seemed just a teensy bit afraid of her. After a quick, but respectful, discussion with the manager where he could do nothing but agree with her that the sign clearly said $10 and we weren't paying a dime more, we paid our $10 and got the hell out of dodge.

We laughed all the way home. And then as we often do, the story got bigger and bigger until we had a whole dance routine worked out. I feel that I can't do it justice in writing. See attached video.

Yes, it was the highlight of the weekend.