Strange encounters in the neighborhood

June 6 2008

I know that DC is a tourist town in the summer, but man, as the temperature rises so has the number of crazy outsiders. When deciding to live right across from the zoo I never considered the fact that my neighborhood and path to work every morning would be invaded by strollers and tour groups, but it is! And while Georgetown is a touristy place and gets way too crowded in the summer the zoo is a whole different kind of crowd. I didn't even know these types of people existed in the city. I mean the fanny pack wearing, wobbly stroller pushing, words on your oversized t-shirt kind of folk. And I wouldn't be mentioning this, but they're not nice, they stare at you....I want to scream some morning (and I'm a morning person) "you are not at the zoo yet, what you are looking at has the right to hit if annoyed!" And even then it would be ok, but they manage to take up the whole side walk and have been known to shout profanity and throw soda on innocent commuters (shout out to my roomie). Come to the zoo, see the animals, but be respectful, we live here and unlike you we have to go to work and don't have the day off!

Now, I bring this up because my roommates and I keep having these weird encounters with people right outside our apartment or on our way to the metro/work. Yesterday morning I was in the Starbucks in my building minding my own business and a women told me to find a husband! When I was ordering my coffee the woman behind me tapped me and told me that the bottom button of my dress was undone. I replied, "oh, i know thank you, I can't reach it." Her reply, not, "do you want me to do it for you?" or nothing, she says, "you should get a husband, they are good for that!" um, I want to know who her husband is so I can take him out for a drink or something, because if that's all he's good for I have a feeling he probably needs a drink. It would have been ok if she stopped there, but oh, not across from the zoo...there is something in the water here...its the too much sharing tap or something. She preceded to keep talking about how I needed to find a husband and that people are getting married to late now, etc etc etc. "Yes thank you I know I am pretty." "No I don't plan on getting married anytime soon." "Thanks for the advice." ....thinking...."now let me put some milk in my coffee and get to work before I pour it on you." This was all before I had my morning coffee! No one wants to be told to find a husband before they have taken the all-empowering morning chug!
So this is one encounter, then today I was handed a little pamphlet with the title, "Will you make it to Heaven? take this test and find out" Thank God she didn't stop to talk to me about it for hours, but she did chase me down and manage to get a few words in while I was waiting for the light to change. But it was comical, she was a completely normal looking women. Looked like she had just spent her day at the zoo, minding her own business and then "bam!" the pamphlets came flying out of that fanny pack. Even funnier was the actual quiz that one is supposed to take to determine whether or not one will make it to heaven.
Add on top of these the dog chasing, stroller that made me almost fall on my face, the lady that fell and almost killed her child trying to beat a cross-walk sign and I had to pick her up and push the stroller before we all died, the Mcdonald's bum that whistles at me almost everyday and my favorite example of metro compliments...the 15yr old girl who seeing me in my bright coral pumps and orange dress ran after me to ask me where I got my shoes screamin, "girrrrrrrl, I love those shoes, where did you get them!" "those are niiiiiiiiiiiice!" Thank you, thank you for drawing attention to the fact that I am clearly wearing my clothes from the night before and while not taking a ride or walk of any shame can't inform the general public of the fact that I was just with my boyfriend and am NOT a hill intern.

While I thought my husband story was pretty good, Alexandra has informed me of an encounter that takes the cake. A misbehaving out of control flat out bitch of a middle school girl hit her then yelled at her and actually had the nerve to throw a soda at her. I told Alexandra she should have fought back or at least yelled something back to get the attention of the group leaders or something. her response, "are you crazy, that girl was way bigger than me, I couldn't take her." From the way she said it I heard, "a large black girl that could sit on me and kill me." so I get the lack of retaliation. But to all you middle schoolers out there, I would have fought back, i'm normally holding hot coffee in the morning and probably would have thrown that on you. Because while you might be younger and clearly were not taught manners....your old enough to know better and probably need to be hit up-side the head, HARD.
I mean these school groups can be dangerous! She has had some nicer encounters where a little girl said she wanted to eat her pear-decorated bag.

My reactions could all be due to the fact that the past four years I have basically lived surrounded by people my own age plus the few occasional profs who are older. I didn't interact with the young or the old really at all, and despite the tutoring I did at the beginning of college; the diversity of ages present on my street is a little overwhelming sometimes. I mean I keep seeing these women that don't look much older than me pushing strollers and I'm hoping they're just babysitting, but no, they're not...its a constant reminder that our day will come.




Another neighborhood with a different age problem
Where do all of the young people hangout in old town Alexandria? I know that its called old town, but I didn't think that was because it was filled with old people. I know its a little pricey and its normally people who are older that like to stroll around eating excessively, buying overpriced clothes that don't really look right and finding antiques, but its so nice down there and I know people my age keep saying they hangout down there, so where? Last night I was down there with my boyfriend and it was really nice, and I had a great time, but there were basically no young people there. This could be because we were in the wrong place, or no one in their right mind our age would go there on a Thursday night...I don't know, you tell me. But at least there were no crazy women with strollers...a huge relief!