It started with the Budget truck.
A little before 2:00 p.m. on Friday, a 16-foot rental truck double-parked on the 1700 block of G Street in northwest Washington, just a few hundred feet from the White House. Two men wearing blue FedEx uniforms exited the cab, walked to the back of the vehicle and pulled a dolly from the truck bed.
No one knew it at the time, but The Great G Street Traffic Jam of 2016 had begun.
Watch The Huffington Post’s complete, exclusive coverage of this strangely captivating event below:
Traffic is tightly regulated around the White House for security reasons. Cab drivers are prohibited from dropping off passengers too close to the presidential residence. Double-parking is technically a no-no, but the practice remains a necessity for deliveries to the various lobbying offices, regulatory agencies and lunch spots in the area.
And like Icarus daring the sun, the Budget truck could not help but court catastrophe. It had narrowed G Street just a few feet too far. When a Reston Limousine bus followed up behind, there was simply no room to get through. Car after car slowed to a stop. And waited. And waited.
And waited.
The vehicles backed up a full block to 17th Street, wrapping around to Pennsylvania Avenue. Frustrated motorists left their cars, lit cigarettes and jeered at the Budget truck. But the orange, blue and white monstrosity would not move.
In the nation’s capital, it’s never easy to pass a Budget.