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Originally Posted by Kingzjester
Man, I thought I was the only person in the world this sort of shit happened to. I swear, this is my everyday. Only imagine the FBI and random bureaucrats involved and presto! You have my life. I have grown somewhat accustomed to it, though.
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That reminds me of the second most embarrassing moment in my life. It was exactly one week after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and my rommmate George wanted to take advantage of DC being deserted to go eat lunch at our favorite cafeteria-style restaurant. After lunch, we walked around town for a while, amazed at how few people were there compared to pre-Sept 11, then made our way back to the car to head back home. But just as we were pulling out of our parking space, George suggested that we could drive past the Pentagon to view the damage and say a prayer.
We found our way there, but couldn't quite figure out how to get to a view of the impact site, so we left after saying a prayer. I asked George if he'd drive us home, as I was getting a bad headache and felt exhausted. While I dozed in the passenger seat, he drove, and I nodded off until I felt the car come to a stop and woke up. He had pulled off to the side of the road because he was lost. It was dark out, and when I had asked George to drive I'd forgotten he had very poor night vision, plus didn't know the roads around DC and Virginia as well as I did. While I was still trying to get my bearings and see where we were, he checked my map, then told me, "Oh, sorry, I've figured it out now, you can go back to resting." A few moments later, I heard George say, "Uh oh!" and I quickly snapped to full attention to see what was up.
George looked horrified. "I was trying to turn around, but I think I picked a bad place to do it..."
We were on a two lane road, with a median separating our lane from the one going the other direction, so there was no way to turn around without going ahead. A red sign loomed before us, "Federal Restricted Area". Uh oh was right.
We contemplated backing out, but a car was coming in behind us so we had to move forward. After a short drive along this road, trapped with no way to turn around, we finally arrived at a huge, intimidating gate with several armed guards.
There was a sign. It was not the sort of sign we ever wanted to see in person.
"Oh God. We're at the CIA."
I had no idea how George had gotten us to the Central Intelligence Agency (to his credit, though, it is actually on the way home, so he wasn't as lost as one might imagine), but nonetheless we were there, and this did not seem a good place to show up without an appointment. I tried to wave a gesture of embarrassent, and pointed to the exit trying to indicate, "Sorry, we're lost, and we're going to turn around now." The guards just stared at us for a moment, so George started to turn the car so we could leave. It seemed they understood our predicament and were going to let us go without any problem. I mean, surely, this must happen all the time...
Lights began to flash behind us, and it was suddenly clear that we hadn't gotten off so easily. George stopped the car and we waited inside. A glance in the rearview mirror showed that there were two guards with guns trained toward our car, advancing on either side, while another approached with his gun still holstered. The guard who didn't have his gun drawn ordered George to roll the window down.
Suddenly we were being bombarded by questions. Who are you, why are you here, and so on. We turned over our identification and told our story. All the while, the guard asked for more information, "Where did you sit in the restaurant you claim to have visited for lunch?" "What route did you take driving around the Pentagon?" and so on. He went back to his post and started calling all sorts of people, I suppose checking our background and confirming whether we really ate lunch where we said we did, and so on. Meanwhile, the other guards looked under our car with some sort of mirror-on--a-stick, then a dog was brought out to sniff our car (for bombs, I guess?). Strangely, we were never asked to get out of the car. They only told us to keep our hands on top of the dashboard where they could see them. I guess it was enough to keep guns drawn, making it clear that if we did have any weapons and tried to go for it, we'd be dead before we could reach them.
My dad had worked for the NSA (National Security Agency) for a few years, so it must really have looked bad for his son to be randomly showing up at the CIA... thank God he was dead by then, so that he wouldn't have to endure the embarrassment this would have caused him. Especially considering he always called the CIA, "Those mother fu**ers across the river."
After several hours, which felt like days, the other guard came back. If my dad's background had shown up in his checking, he didn't mention it. Glaring from George to me, he told us, "Okay, you check out, but I could arrest you right now just for being here." He let that sink in before he continued. "But because I'm feeling nice tonight, you're going to leave here and head straight home. If you're not there in 30 minutes..." He trailed off, making it clear that we didn't even want to consider not getting straight home.
We got back to the apartment just before the half hour was up, and the phone rang the moment we stepped through the door. It was our friend from the CIA checking up on us. I imagine he already knew we were home, as there was likely someone following our car, but was calling to make sure we were sufficiently scared to keep out of trouble in the future.
Afterward, I looked at George and said, "Thank God Mehdi wasn't with us." Mehdi is a friend of ours from Iran, who was in town visiting but was with some other friends that night. Knowing how the atmosphere was right after Sept 11, I'm sure if we'd had someone from the Middle East in the car, we'd all have ended up in jail, for who knows how long...
So I can definitely sympathize, Kingzjester.
Cheers,
doroposo
