SWWBO gets ANSWER'd

SWWBO, having the vapors from our excitement of the day previous, took to her fainting couch to recover Saturday morning, and sent me on ahead to the Gathering of Eagles.

Long about 11AM, I get the cheap thrill of my cell phone on vibrate, and it's SWWBO asking me where she should tell the taxi driver where to go. Stifling the first impulsive answer, I tell her to have him bring her to the Mall, at 7th and Madison, and I'd be there to meet her.

First mistake. I should have said "National Archives."

20 minutes later I get another cheap thrill. Then the girl put her top back on It's SWWBO on the phone.

She's at Lafayette Park.

This is not good.

In her discussion with the taxi driver about where to go, it seems he decided that she didn't really want to go to the pro-military rally, but the anti-war rally. And it wasn't a simple mistake, it was deliberate.

So there's SWWBO, standing amongst... the ANSWER crowd.

Concrete Bob was just full of helpful reassurance. He said, "Omigod! Tell her to be quiet and not draw attention to herself and try to exfiltrate before they figure out she's not one of them! You've gotta go rescue her man!"

Carp. That's over a mile away. And uphill. And I've got this 100-pound belly-pack I carry 24/7. Sigh. So, the lumbering beast that is the Armorer starts off down Madison, shifts up to Pennsylvania, and, skirting the Treasury Building, starts his ingress into Indian Country. Past the giant papier mache' Bush head, the bloody "It's all for oil" mannequin, past the actually-very-good Caribbean steel drum player, drinking in all the cliched' signage looking at all the people gathered in front of the White House yelling "Free Speech" at the building because, like, well, there were all those Myrmidons there making sure they couldn't stand in front of the White House and yell "Free Speech" and stuff - since many brought their young children to be oppressed by the state, you could tell they fully expected to be mown down by soldiery any minute, so infringed upon were their rights to express themselves.

Or not. I'm not sure.

I find SWWBO. Standing there, blood at the corner of her mouth from all the tongue biting she's been doing. Hey, *I'm* the guy who wandered in there with a US flag wrapped in a Move America Forward t-shirt, not her!

While standing there, drinking in all the clever sloganry (they haven't found much new since the 60's) noting all the people railing against the military/industrial complex who would apparently be nude were it to disappear, since their source of cammies would dry up, the obligatory Che signs, etc - reveling in the passionately held logical inconsistencies present, all the earnest young men espousing anything that might get that hawt chick to drop her drawers for him (only to find out she was being a lesbian this year in college) I heard the phrase that sent a chill down my spine...

"You're too well dressed to be here."

Said the guy in Dockers newer than mine, and a collared shirt, admittedly not red with a Castle Argghhh! logo on it. But he was wearing running shoes, and I had leather ones... I guess that was how I was out of uniform. Mind you, self-tanned moccasins would have been fine, I'm sure, or Earth Sandals, or Doc Martens, but apparently these were clearly MCWS'... Middle Class Warmonger Shoes.

Content with having devastated me with that biting fashion commentary, he ambled on. None of the others took the cue, SWWBO and I were safe for the moment.

Then, as the assembled fashionably tatty masses ambled by to get organized for the march, SWWBO started mumbling louder and louder, making sotto voce comments that were increasingly less sotto and much more voce. The natives were starting to notice the Myrmidon and his Barbarian consort.

The Myrmidon was getting increasingly nervous. Enough so, I began contingency planning. "Okay, if they come over and start to engage us, I'll get on my knees and beg for my life while SWWBO slips away..." Erm, no, my knees will hurt if I do that. "I'll pick SWWBO up and dump her over the barrier by the White House cops, and go down swinging!" Erm, no, that'll throw my back out and rather than go down swinging, I'll just collapse on the ground and whimper like a whipped puppy. Since I'm wearing the Castle Argghhh! shirt, I can't do that. "I know! I'll ask SWWBO if it's okay we just slip through the crowd and exfiltrate!"

So, maintaining our sang froid, we nonchalantly walked across the line of march, towards the watching police and the nearest exit. Safely gaining the shield of law enforcement, SWWBO bravely unlimbered her flag and we walked out to safety.

Well, that's mostly true.

We were never harassed beyond the "too well dressed" comment, nor did I truly feel in danger. But, SWWBO was getting restive, and I did kinda figure that if she unloaded like she was boiling to, the environment might well change, and, like I said, I didn't have any bail money.

It was fun, really. It just reads better this way.