Overheard in D.C.: Home Sweet Home Away From Home
Home is a pretty subjective concept. Where you hang your hat? The place you can always go back to? Where your love lies waiting silently for you? But what about where you spend the largest part of your waking hours? We may like to keep a firm separation between office life and "home" life, but let's look at the facts: who do you spend more hours awake and in the same room with than that annoying guy you share an office with? Whether by choice or not, you may even know more about your office-mate than someone you've been dating for months. If you're a late riser, you probably have more than half your meals in or around your office. You may have changes of clothes there. A lot of poor unfortunate folks in this area find themselves in their offices far too late at night more times than they might care to admit. Yet home is still that too neglected apartment/condo/house at the other end of our commute, the one that we keep meaning to decorate properly (or clean thoroughly) once we have a free weekend. We don't want to think we live where we work; with the office-mate, the drab beige walls, and the half-smoke vendor on the corner. If I live where I work, then that's my life, and who wants to entertain that thought?
Quote of the Week
On the Green Line to Branch Avenue around 8:50 in the morning:
A lone middle-aged tourist in plaid and shorts and running shoes tries to make small talk with commuters:
Tourist Man sits down next to a woman in a suit: "How are you?"
Hassled Commuter Woman: "Good."
She tries to turn away but Tourist Man is not so easily thwarted.
Tourist Man: "Do you live here?"
Hassled Commuter Woman snorts: "Nooooo. I work here."
Tourist Man: "Ha ha. No one lives here, huh?"
Hassled Commuter Woman: "Nooooo. They just commute in... commute out."
Tourist Man: "It's my first time here. How long have you been here?"
Hassled Commuter Woman, very adamant: "No, no, I don't LIVE here. I WORK here."
After the jump, the mean streets, the confusing landmarks, and the collected knowledge of our nation's capital.
You may find yourself listening in to someone else's conversation. And you may ask yourself, "Well...what do I do now?" And you may tell yourself, " Send it to overheardindc (at) gmail (dot) com."
Photo by Flickr user JamesCalder.
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Straight outta Foggy Bottom.
19th and M Streets, NW around midnight on a Wednesday:
Drunk, frat boy type in his early 30s: "Man these people around here are crazy but they don't know who they f*cking with. They don't know I'm a gangsta white boy. Gangsta damn it! I grew up in DC. I went to GW."
5 minutes later he walks by on the opposite side of the street yelling that he couldn't remember where he parked his car.
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Where ever it is, it sure ain't Kansas anymore.
New York Avenue, NE, in full view of the Capitol dome:
One driver to another: "So. What town are we stuck in here? We're trying to get to 495."
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No wonder Congress always claims to know what the founding fathers really meant.
Russell Senate Office Building:
Young staffer giving a tour to about 30, talking about the Research staff of the Senate Library: "They could tell you what Abraham Lincoln was thinking when he signed the Declaration of Independence. They just have all this knowledge."
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Acid rain.
On the Metro after Saturday's massive deluge:
Man 1: "I don't understand how everyone isn't soaked."
Man 2: "Yeah and it's freezing."
Man 1: "But it's not half as bad as like going to school. You know, like in third grade and you're wet and you sit down at your desk and you start to itch. But it's not like an actual itch, it's like a psychological itch."
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A guy tries to do something nice, and...
Outside the 9:30 Club after the Ben Gibbard concert:
Boy: "Hey. Cupcake?"
Girl: *blank stare, looks annoyed*
Boy: "No, that's not my new nickname for you. That was an actual question."
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Words to live by.
Outside the 9:30 Club after a !!! show during which about 60 fans took the stage with the band during the last song:
Young woman: "I have two rules...I don't show my tits in public and I don't get on stage."
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Sibling bonding.
Giant Foods in Columbia Heights:
While waiting in the checkout line with their mother....
Little girl (6ish): [Stuffs 5-6 tic-tacs in her mouth] "How does my breath smell?" [Immediately huffs into little brother's face.]
Little brother (4ish): [Thinks for a moment] "Terrible!"
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Artistic license.
On P Street, two guys and a gal sit on a stoop doing what appeared to be charcoal drawings:
Guy 1 looking at Guy 2’s drawing: "That’s too much buttock, those buttocks weren’t there."
Guy 2: "Dude, these buttocks are real. Trust me."