Zipcar Take 1

Meet Truman. He lives a few blocks away from me. He's available to rent by the hour and came in quite handy on Saturday when I had some furniture to pick up didn't feel like harrassing some guy to help me. If you ask me, Zipcar is a totally genius idea. Especially when I purchased a membership via Groupon and saved a ton of dinero. What is Zipcar, you might be wondering? It's car sharing. You pay an annual fee and then you are able to rent cars/trucks (they range anywhere from Kias to BMWs) by the hour, for a very reasonable price. These vehicles 'live' all over the Metropolitan area, close to Metro stations. I first heard about Zipcar a few years ago and have now experienced firsthand how practical it is in a big city like DC.

Back at the beginning of March, I was lucky enough to score some free furniture off the listserv (Craig's List for Mormons, essentially). The only problem was the girl who was giving the stuff away kept changing plans on me, so I continued to sleep on an airmattress and live in a chaotic/unorganized room in the mean time. When things are free, you cannot complain too loudly, right? Anyway, the day for pick up finally arrived. Enter my first time using Zipcar. My roommate Laura was nice enough to come with me into the District to help navigate, bright and early on Saturday morning. If you think you are a competent person, drive in D.C. and all belief in yourself will be lost. Ok, not completely, but it is a confusing place to get around, even with GPS. What makes it even worse is when you are on a strict schedule (Zipcar late fees start @ $50. Yikes). After some anxiety and a few illegal U-turns, we made it to our destination and worked quickly to haul my new bed, dresser, nightstand, and headboard into the truck. Free is pretty hard to beat; bless the girl who gave them away for saving me a bunch of money!

Thankfully getting home wasn't as complicated and we unloaded everything in approximately 8 mins. I had some other things I needed to pick up so I hurried over to Target. Zipcar is good for a lot of things - one of them being efficiency. Usually when I go to Target I will meander around and waste time looking at random stuff. Not so on this trip. I was in and out in a record 10 minutes - I should get some type of award or ribbon for this accomplishment. Traffic in Arlington on Saturdays is no joke and I knew that I would probably get stuck in some. Luckily I made it back to park Truman right on time. Happy, oh so happy.

My Saturday got even better when Heather came to pick me up and we headed over to Costco. Also adding to our joy was the fact that it was around 70 degrees and sunny. YES. Costco on Saturdays with Heather (and once upon a time, Neebs) is one of my favorite things in the world. Not exaggerating. When we lived in PHX it was tradition to hit up Costco for samples, lunch, and occasionally we would actually buy stuff. This particular trip I accomplished all of these things. Including checking out this regional item Costco has to offer: chocolate capital building, anyone?