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More DC fodder…
including an elevator exorcism
By Susan Olling
While tourists unwittingly provide lots of stories, they didn’t provide
the only fodder for this installment.
Metro, our little subway system, has had something newsworthy on a
number of occasions this year. The most recent something
newsworthy occurred in early August. A train derailed in a tunnel
between two stations in the middle of downtown D.C. Fortunately,
the train was empty. Unfortunately, the event occurred at
5:00 a.m. On a weekday. Several stations were closed, and
three subway lines weren’t moving through downtown. The day was
shot to you-know-what for anyone trying to get to work using the
trains. We were then told the track problem had been found
in July but not repaired. Last week, the good folks at
Metro announced that the repair didn’t happen because the information
had been deleted from a repair report. Surprisingly, two Metro
employees resigned after this announcement.
The Washington Monument elevator has been cranky lately. Elevator
techs have been trying to figure out what’s going on. This
fifteen-year-old piece of machinery runs 364 days per year. It’s
runs thirteen hours per day Memorial Day through Labor Day and eight
hours per day the rest of the year. Should it be a surprise to
anyone that by the end of August, this thing doesn’t want to
work? Suggestion: close the obelisk, and don’t reopen it
until the elevator is fixed or replaced. Then put the thing on a
maintenance program. If maintenance has to occur during the day,
so be it. Some rangers joked that the pope should be asked to do
an elevator exorcism while he’s visiting D.C.
On a recent evening, a twelve-year-old was found by himself at the
monument. A ranger at the World War II Memorial responded to the
radio call. The parents of this kid were at WWII. Where
were your little gray cells, parents, to not know your kid wasn’t with
you? Oh wait, the gray cells must have been on vacation,
too. Note to adults with kids. Yes, you’re on the National
Mall. Crime on that stretch of grass is not unheard of.
Keep track of your kid(s).
Thank goodness the urchins are back in school. The school day now
starts later in the MoCo and Fairfax County systems. This is
supposed to allow the little dears to get more sleep.
Right. And Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny meet for lunch every
week. The urchins will just stay up later. Traffic, though,
will be even more mucked up. By the way, the school system in our
county has been looking for a new superintendent. Good luck to
the poor sod who takes that job. The talking heads in our county
are saying, again, that schools need more money. Here’s a
novel idea: show us how wisely you spend the tax dollars you already
get before asking for more.
Got a call recently from Buckeye Nut U. Delicious fun. I
told Mr. Buckeye Nut U. that I bet he was calling for money. That
was one of the reasons. I didn’t give him a chance to continue
and told him that three universities are represented in our
house. We know where they live. If/when we want to send
money, we will. I thanked him and rang off.
Finally, if you or your family are coming to D.C. around 01 Oct (school
groups beware as well), please let your senators and representatives
know how important it is they pass a budget before 01 Oct.
(I have other descriptions of those people, but I’ll be kind.)
That’s when the federal government’s fiscal year begins. If
there’s no budget, the following will be closed on 01 Oct until a
budget is passed: the Smithsonian Institution and National Zoo, the
Capitol, the U.S. Botanic Garden, the Washington Monument, and all
those memorials. More importantly for tourists, all of the
restrooms between the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial will be
closed. To the congressman who is having a tantrum about the name
of a mountain, please use that same amount of energy to get a budget
passed when you get back from your most recent vacation. No
federal budget by 01 Oct affects many more people than the renaming of
a mountain in Alaska. The 535 kids didn’t pass a budget on time
in 2013, and the shutdown (or, in Congress-speak, lapse in
appropriations) lasted two weeks. A request to Mr.
Speaker. Remember 2013, and be a leader this time around.
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