February 25, 2005
Random Commuter Observations
Well, so much for the Storm of the Century of the Week. We got three, maybe four inches out where I live. Just enough that I felt compelled to shovel the top of the driveway this morning.
There's something about having to deal with the snow piled up on my driveway by the plows on the road that always irks me. I suppose there really isn't any practical solution to the problem and the roads do have to be cleared, but the resulting mound left on my own drive always seems the product of calloused, almost aggressive indifference. It's as if I can hear the VDOT plowman saying, "Yo, Buddy, that's your problem."
Eh. Turning to other things, another sure sign of Spring in Dee Cee is the return of the Out-of-Town High Schoolers (Adolescens vulgaris). They start turning up in great field-tripping hordes, jamming the Metro and jangling the nerves of ordinary commuters with their incessant squeels and bellows of "Ohmigod, we're going underground!" and "How many more stops to the Smithsonian?" and perhaps worst of all, mimicking the automated voice that says, "Doors closing - please stand clear of the doors, thank you." (Note to anyone planning to come to Dee Cee for a visit: DO NOT DO THIS!)
I never much liked teenagers, even when I was one. As I get older, I find I like them even less. (One of Robbo's Ironclad Rules of Life is that anyone who thinks their teenage years were the "best years of their life" is a moron.) Being trapped in a subway car packed with scores of them yammering away at each other does nothing to improve my opinion.
Posted by Robert at February 25, 2005 10:19 AM(Adolescens vulgaris).
And their clogging both sides of the metro escalators.
Blood pressure rising ...
Posted by: Bill from INDC at February 25, 2005 10:49 AMAin't it the truth. And clogging the sidewalks as they're waiting to get in to ESPNZone or Hard Rock Cafe.
Posted by: Robert the LB at February 25, 2005 11:34 AMMakes me especially glad that I don't have to cross the river for my job. I refuse to have a job on that side of the river, actually.
Posted by: jen at February 25, 2005 01:57 PMI'm reminded of a quote ascribed to Mark Twain about rearing children.
He believed that newborns should be put into a barrel and fed through the bung hole. Then, when they hit 16, the bung should be driven in.
With a 19-y/o of my own, there have been times when that seemed the wisest policy every devised.
Posted by: John at February 25, 2005 10:09 PMOy, I know. Try working where the nearest Metro stop and lunch locale is Union Station - where all the young-uns go after their tours of the Capitol. Bane of my existence, I'm telling you.
Posted by: Nicole Griffin at February 25, 2005 10:10 PMAH! You feel my pain! Yesterday I was desperately trying to get to Foggy Bottom but they are everywhere at Metro Center, and the annoying part is that they all must wait for each other, en masse. A huge tumor like clump of angst and pimples in the middle of Metro center. You can't get around them, you can't go through them. They are like an army.
I also think the escalator needs signs. Stand to the right, walk to the left. Because they all like to giggle and stare at their nails and pick at their jewelry on the left side of the escalator while I am impatiently breathing down their necks to move to the side.
I'm afraid to go running on the mall this weekend for the hordes of them I may encounter.
Posted by: Wittysexkitten at February 26, 2005 10:10 AMSounds like you need to be a little more aggressive with your movements down the escalator if you end up breathing down their necks. My method is movement and "excuse me, pardon me" all the way down the escalator. And trust me, they will move. That's how I got through the escalators on Inauguration Day...
Posted by: Ben Schumin at March 27, 2005 09:10 PM
