Washington, D.C.

I recently visited the capitol of our fine country for a four-day student media conference. I spent a lot of time walking around in the rain looking for something to do with my friend and fellow conference-goer Chase. We ended up wandering around in four different convenience stores in the downtown D.C. area -- a Mexican corner store, a 7-Eleven, a Rite Aid, and a CVS.

Mexican corner store
On the day of our arrival, we anticipated a jacuzzi at the hotel we were staying at on SCAD's dollar, the Hilton Washington. As such, our first trip on foot through downtown involved buying some cigars at a convenience store -- because that's what you do in a hot tub, smoke cigars. The first one we found was exclusively Mexican. Mexican flags hung from the ceiling. The place was separated into three rooms.

The first room was filled with standard junk food, gum and toiletries. The second room had two glass display cases and a large magazine wall. The first glass case contained over a hundred unique low-grade Mexican films in VHS format. Most of them were about love affairs. The second glass case was filled with plenty of overpriced glass pipes -- strictly for tobacco use.

The third room cost a dollar to enter. It wasn't really a room, but a section of the back of the store surrounded by bed sheets hanging from clotheslines. We could see between the sheets. You guessed it, full of porn. I wonder how many people are willing to pay a dollar cover to look at what are most likely low-budget Mexican porn VHS tapes in the back of a rotten convenience store.

7-Eleven
We didn't buy cigars at the Mexican place. We didn't buy anything there. We left swiftly and silently. A 7-Eleven was across the street and I hadn't seen one of those in years, so we walked in. Upon entering I slipped in a puddle of Slurpee machine runoff and almost cracked my skull on the linoleum floor next to the Tasty Kake rack. This store was tiny -- only two short aisles and a small counter cramped with two cashiers. They didn't stock cigars, not even White Owls. We settled on Black & Milds to represent the 912. A cop skipped us in line. This place was beat.

Rite Aid
We ended up at this place at least three separate times during the trip due to its location (one block from the hotel). It was like any other pharmacy style convenience store, except a lot larger. Their selection of inexpensive (read: crappy) cigars was astounding, but we weren't willing to spend any more money on novelty tobacco. They had some great magazines. There was a large back basement room, mostly containing women's beauty products, that we didn't bother entering. It was uneventful, much like --

CVS
After seeing an advanced screening of The Darjeeling Limited one night, Chase and I really needed some cigarettes. Despite most of what this entire post insinuates, neither of us are really "smokers." Just, when you see a film with a cigarette in almost every scene, and you've got 20 city blocks to walk in the cold back to the hotel, some things must be done. We walked for about five blocks from the E Street Cinema without finding a single convenience store -- strange because whenever we didn't need to find one, there was always one in sight.

The CVS was a lucky find. Despite it being even larger than the aforementioned Rite Aid, it took us a while to realize that it was really a CVS store and not an ad for one on the side of a corner apartment building. It took even longer to find the entrance. This was the first time I had been carded for cigarettes in a few years. My pack of Camel Lights ran about three dollars more than they do in Savannah. It was worth it. This place was uneventful as well.


The D.C. trip was a good one. As far as convenience stores go, the city offered some interesting stuff, but what was I expecting out of chains like Rite Aid and CVS?

Oh, and for those of you wondering, the Hilton didn't have a jacuzzi. We smoked the Black & Milds anyway.