This DCist couldn’t get to bed Friday night. Tossing, turning, restless, we even listened to two Mogwai albums in hopes we’d fall into ambient slumber. Nope. After a 20-minute nap around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, we gave up and started watching TV. And at 6 a.m., an episode of “Murphy Brown” came on Nick at Nite. We hadn’t watched a sit-com in ages (do they still make them?), so it brought back memories of what television used to be like back in the late 80s and early 90s.

And this episode of “Murphy Brown” was special. Murph’s car was stolen from right in front of her Georgetown home, on Cambridge Place to be precise. Murph and Frank try to negotiate with the 2nd District to take immediate action to find her car, but the D.C. cops are underfunded and overworked. (Should we blame Marion Barry on this one?) Murph gets pissed at her neighbors because her Georgetown block had a neighborhood watch. Calling a neighborhood meeting to discuss the matter, they’re all frustrated because there’s a two-year waiting list to get security gates installed on your block by the city. (We know crime was bad 10-15 years ago, but can you really petition to block off a public street for security purposes … oh wait.) Then Murph discovers that her neighbors — including that nasty old hag Mrs. Stritch — all have guns for their protection (wasn’t it illegal to own firearms in the District then?). She freaks out and like “Murphy Brown” was known to do, drive in a social message at the end of the episode, asking how much security must we all have before our lives are negatively impacted, yadda, yadda, yadda.

If Murphy Brown was living in today’s D.C., we’d probably recommend that she move to Kalorama — there are cops everywhere!