$3 i'll never get back

I did it. I can't believe it, but I did it. I went directly into the sh*t and got out alive. But I'm changed. What I saw...well, it just wasn't right. It was Georgetown -- Georgetown after dark.

Now you may be (properly) asking yourself, "Why?! Why did you do it?!" Well, my friends, I honestly don't know. It was a matter of curiosity, a sociological study, a mission. Plus, an out-of-town friend here on bizness was put up in the Latham Hotel for the night and who doesn't like a fancy hotel? But regardless of reason, I knew one day I had to see what all the fuss was about. Are there really as many douchebags in Georgetown as legend says? Are popped collars on the male douches and pearls on the female douches really what goes down in the wild? I had to find out...and what I found wasn't pretty.

I ventured into the sh*t with three friends, all of us either going in for the first time or for the first time "since college." We began our epic buy imbibing cheap champagne in Latham room 620. We eased our way in, shielding ourselves from the inhabitants until we had imbibed a sufficient amount of cheap champagne.

We took turns peering through the double pane glass shield that protected us from direct contact with the beasts. As we ogled M Street, we began to question our choice, wondering for a brief second if we had sufficiently prepared ourselves to handle face-to-face contact. But we knew we had come with a mission -- perhaps a mission impossible, but we knew what we had to do. We went in.

Oh, the humanity! The outfits were bad (on top of everyone's Lacoste and Brooks Brothers was a Patgonia or Northface fleece), but the bars were worse. For one, almost every place charged a cover. And while a cover is fine -- even expected -- for dance clubs with live DJs or bars with live bands, an entrance fee to stand around in a half-empty pub is just bad business. Having lived in Chicago, Boston, New York City and Moscow (Russia -- the real sh*t, people), I've never come across such an ass-backwards system. Even other neighborhoods in DC don't engage in such a barbaric practice. But when in Rome, er, Georgetown...

So, we paid our $3 per person (tangent: WTF's with a $3 cover anyway?! Three. Dollars. Why even have a cover?!) and found, well, nothing. Literally. The bar was more half empty than half full and the crowd was...um, I'll just let the above photo explain the crowd. This sh*t was clearly not tight. So we finished our overpriced vodka sodas and aborted our mission. Sometimes quitting is the right decision.

On the way out I asked the bouncer what the hippest bar in the neighborhood was. He shrugged half-heartedly and gave me a look as if to say, "Sweetie, you're in Georgetown. We don't do hip." Truer words have never been non-verbally spoken.

Despite our premature retreat, we really did learn from our time in the sh*t. We learned the legend really is true: Georgetown's boring, lame and even less well dressed than other parts of the District. Four thumbs down. And, you owe me $3.