[ kristen ]: Some days, you just have to laugh.

It all began with our crazy schedule for classes today. For those of you who don't know, us Washington Seminar students have two classes in addition to our internships, and we take off Fridays to have class and listen to various lecturers. Today, we had to go to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), clear on the other side of the city, to listen to a briefer.

Two things you need to know as background:

One, this is one of the few briefings that I was genuinely looking forward to hearing. As a political science student and having just returned from 2 months in Israel, this is a topic of interest to me.

Two: Donna Lee (what we call our BYU professor out here, unbeknownst to her) made it very clear that if we did not arrive at AIPAC 10 minutes prior to our briefing time, we would not be let in through security with the rest of the class.

That being said, us girls were running late this morning as we hurried through the masses of those making their way to work, through the crowds and the grey morning, and down the escalator. We saw that the Metro was coming, and pushed through the throngs, throwing elbows to make it to our train on time. We simply couldn't afford to be late.

As I rode down the escalator, trapped behind a line of slow-moving people that stood in front of me, I saw our train unloading. We wove through the crowd as best we could, but the lights flashed, signaling the closing of the train doors. And these doors don't stay open for anybody or anything that may be caught in their path.

I lunged into a car already full of early-morning commuters, offending half of them as I squished in. My friend Paige made it in safely as well, but our two other friends, Ashley and Sara, did not have such a lucky fate. I glanced back as the doors slammed shut, and Ashley was stuck in between the two train doors, holding Sara's hand. Sara was still stuck on the other side, on the platform.

With some brute force and some encouraging peals of screams from Paige and I, Ashley somehow forced the Metro doors open and forced her way into the crowded train car. Sara, who had not been on the train, forced her way through the doors of death. However, they mauled her purse as they quickly slammed shut again, capturing her Marc Jacobs purse in its snare.

We all screamed and squealed and gave Sara's arm a tug, and eventually her purse flew out of the door in time for our Metro train to go speeding down the Blue line. I died laughing, tears streaming from my eyes every which way. I couldn't stop. I don't think the tired, crowded commuters were as entertained as we were as they glanced at us with silent disdain.

It was a treacherous train ride, with our train driver slamming on the brakes here and quickly accelerating there. When we finally got off the right stop, we found our bearings and realized we had 6 minutes to make it 5 blocks.

We were off--running 5 city street blocks in high heels was no easy feat. Ashley and I pulled up the rear, and twice we had to stop running because we were laughing too hard at the sight of Paige and Sara running in their heels. I'm sure we looked just as comical.

We finally made it all 5 blocks, one minute past our deadline. By now, my carefully curled hair-do was in ruins, my bangs were a mess, my high heels were about to snap in half, and I was flushed and thirsty from the unexpected jog. Much of our class was about 10 minutes late, and we ended up waiting late so everyone was there. We ran in high heels, and we did it in vain.

Our class loaded the elevator to go up to the 8th floor for our briefing. We packed in there to get as many of us up as possible. We stopped on the third floor for an employee to step onto the elevator, but when she got on, we didn't move. The elevator door remained open a crack, and after a minute or so, we realized we had never changed floors.

To make an extremely long story short, we spent forty-five minutes in this elevator. We went from excitement to annoyance, to quickly being extremely hot and feeling a bit claustrophobic and in need of air. We also had the good luck to end up with all of the loudest people in that elevator, somehow. It was pretty funny.

After three quarters of an hour of the firemen working on the elevator, we heard a voice from above our heads, pulling on a panel. He asked if we were all OK, and stuck his hand down from up above. He told us we would be climbing out the roof of the elevator with a ladder, and we would be out very soon. This was to be quite a feat in our business skirts and stiletto heels. Well, unfortunately, the panel did not lift up, so we were resigned to exiting the door the old-fashioned way, whenever that opened.

After an hour in the elevator, we finally emerged, sweaty and relieved. I actually thought it was pretty amusing, and it reminded me again of how my life feels like the movie You've Got Mail (autumn in New York, etc.). We took a picture with our rescuer and made our way to the lecture room, where our lecturer was giving his concluding remarks about American policy toward Israel. We literally sat down in our seats for five minutes, just for us to get back up and leave again. I was bummed we'd gotten stuck in the Metro doors, run 5 blocks in our heels, and gotten stuck in the elevator to miss the speaker. Oh well.

Some days, you just have to laugh.