It’s true! There is definitely something different about Washington... Actually, not just something, almost everything. Last night Margaret and I flew into Baltimore-Washington Airport instead of Dulles or that other one with the name that used to be “National” but has been officially changed to honor an American President who had been a California politician... no, not Nixon... the one who was an actor before he became governor of the Golden State. No, not the Gubernator, who hasn’t actually achieved the distinction of being elected president... yet. That one is said to be working on it, but he is reported to be getting ready to make a couple of movies first.

It’s not a new thing... this difference between Washington and the rest of the country. It must be acknowledged that this area has been different right from the beginning it was decided to turn a swamp into the nation’s capital. And I say, Vive la difference... Well, sometimes vive la difference. The lead story in the Washington Post this morning, complete with photograph of a blank wall at the National Gallery and the story about a “visitor” (Does anybody know where Fred Phelps or Pastor Jones was on Friday?) who tried to dislodge a Paul Gauguin masterpiece depicting partial nudity, while screaming that it is “evil.” The picture was found to be undamaged. The condition of the “visitor...” You can fill in that blank depending on your religious, political, socioeconomic, etc., etc., etc., frame of mind. This is Washington, and that’s allowed.

The plane landed at 11.40 p.m.; we made it to the car rental lot by half-past-midnight, and a woman speaking a decidedly British dialect of English, who might have once been a British Airways flight attendant back in the days when they were called stewardesses... who perhaps got disoriented on one of her layovers in Washington and wound up peddling Budget cars at BWI... a Dantesque assignment at any time of day, but at midnight hell for sure.

She never once looked at me, except for what she could see of me on my California driver’s license. That’s the way it’s done in Washington. Reality is a paper thing. She could relate to me by way of my driver’s license the way the folks down at the Internal Revenue Service relate to me every year around this time when my friend and tax man Dave Yoshida sends them an accounting of my financial life for the year just ended... but she did say, the Budget lady, “What can I do for you... sir... which she added when she saw that I had been born before WWII. I expected her to look up at that point to see if I am really fit enough to be trusted with a Budget car, but she didn’t. She got my reservation off the paper I handed across to her with my credit card and driver’s license... quickly and efficiently, still without looking up, asked if I could be happy with a Mercury Grand Marquis... I had requested... actually, to be honest, requested a small economy car... a cheap car... a BUDGET car. The Budget lady didn’t wait for my answer, assuring me that I was getting the Mercury Grand Marqis at the economy, cheap car price... and asked me to punch accept in a couple of places on a computer screen bigger than the ones at the grocery store out where I live... told me to sign at the bottom with the electronic pen... handed me a bundle of papers... and said I should go out the door, take a right and then another right and find B-5 where I would find the Mercury Grand Marquis waiting for me with the keys in it.

She was right. The Mercury Grand Marquis was there. It is the biggest car I’ve seen in a long time. It’s bigger than those SUVs and supersized, high-up-off-the-pavement pickups that hog California freeways and most of the parking spaces in the San Diego condo community where I live. I got the picture the minute I saw the car. That Budget woman had been trying to get that car off the lot all day long, and she finally found a sucker who was too weary and eager to get to his daughter’s house in Rockville to argue. To give her credit, she probably assumed I could actually drive the car because she probably assumed I had chased Rommel across North Africa in a tank about that size.

Margaret and I could have spent the night in the trunk of that car. I take back all my complaining about Margaret’s taking too much luggage on a short trip. After I’d loaded it into the cavernous trunk, I was apprehensive... a little afraid we’d misplace some of the luggage in this car. Margaret put her foot down and refused to ride back there to make sure we didn’t lose anything.

I considered going back in and demanding the small car that I’d been digitally promised when I made the reservation, but I didn’t think the Budget woman would recognize me; so we got in and headed for Rockville... after I tried to figure out how to get the seat, the big-wide-soft leather seat, to move up toward the steering wheel... after a couple of minutes of trying several combinations of buttons and levers on the dash display, I decided I could lean forward and maneuver the car to Nancy’s house. I’d figure out the controls in the morning in broad daylight.