Have you ever driven somewhere and as soon as you turned off your car's engine wondered how you got there?
That might have been what was going through Mathew Goldstein's mind Tuesday afternoon.
The Internal Revenue Service information technology specialist was driving his gray Honda Civic along 17th Street N.W. around 4:30 p.m. on May 6 and inadvertently followed the motorcade carrying President Obama's daughters Malia and Sasha into the presidential compound's secure perimeter, according to the Washington Post.
Goldstein was charged with unlawful entry, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum of 180 days in jail and a fine of as much as $1,000. He was released after a hearing in D.C. Superior Court and ordered by the judge to stay away from the White House.
The newspaper reports that Goldstein, a Mitchellville, Maryland, resident, had been downtown at a function with coworkers. Goldstein reportedly told officials that he was not familiar with the roads around the White House and that a mistaken turn put him in the wrong place.
I sympathize. When we lived in Greenbelt, Maryland, just up the road in Prince George's County from Goldstein's home, I knew how to drive from our house to work in D.C. and back. Take me off that weekday drive route and I'd get turned around, too.
That's why when I had to go somewhere other than work, I depended on the D.C. Metro or rides with the hubby or friends. I suspect Goldstein will be bumming rides into the nation's capital from now on.
