TC the Terrible

For those of you that have known me for a while, this is going to come as a shock, but I’m no longer addicted to e-mail and electrons like I once was.  That sounds like a big, fat lie coming from a guy with the Internet and four e-mails strapped to his hip.  None the less, it’s the truth.  

My Blackberry spends more time on my dresser when I’m home than it does on my hip.  Despite the fact that I’ve just invested in a new computer I sometimes go for days without turning it on.  I’ve pretty much lost the desire to devote any real time to staying connected to the rest of the world.  The primary reasons are (I think) work and the kids.

Work is really starting to pick up.  We’ve had major personnel turn over in the past few weeks and I’ve been handed a bigger slice of the pie, so to speak.  One of the new guys isn’t catching on as fast as he should and the other is still convinced that he can make the system rotate around him.  Both of them really need to step back and learn the system around here.

THE KIDS are on THE WOMAN’S last good nerve right now.  They only have this week left of summer vacation and it can not end a moment to soon.  All of them are in a competition to see how much of her time they can grab and ready to snap.  It makes me glad to be at the office.

There’s more to tell, but I’ll save that for later on this week.

Out.

The end of my first full season of DC tourists is drawing to a close and I’ve held off talking about the ingrates for as long as I can. Granted, I was new to this a few months ago too, so I can understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t think I need to put up with it.

If you want to come here and use OUR (yes, we own it – not you) underground transportation system you are going to have to follow the rules.

RULE 1:  No talking. None. Not a word from you.   Those of us that ride the Metro professionally do not want to hear your mindless prattle about how it makes your ears pop. We could care less that your phone won’t work underground.  We aren’t announcing to you the number of stops we have left, why should you announce it?  There is no reason for you to talk.  None at all.

RULE 2:  Restrain your children. They do not need to bounce around like God-less heathens. This should go without saying, but apparently some of you think that children are allowed to behave like wild apes as long as they are not in their zip code of origin. Some mean people, and I’m not talking about the K Street Klan, live here. Piss them off and they will squish your babies in front of your eyes.

RULE 3:  Don’t bring food on board. Over 700,000 of us ride the Metro every day and we don’t want to share the ride with bugs and rats. Do you want our crap in your ride?  I didn’t think so.  We have cops here that arrest 14 year old girls for eating McDonald’s fries on the Metro.  They will not hesitate to do the same to you and your ‘kin’.

RULE 4:  Know where you are going before you get on. We are not your tour guides and we are not in the mood to help your lost ass out. Metro has a great trip planner at www.metroopensdoors.com that will tell you how to get where you need to be. BTW, the Smithsonian is located in the middle of the District on the Orange and Blue lines.   Listen to the driver, they will tell you when to get off.

RULE 5:  Get out of the way. If you are a slow walker, or just want gawk at all the people, move your happy ass over to the side.  Most locals are trying to catch a bus when we get off the train and you are in our way. Buses here are not like the ones that pick up the Wells Bayou kids and bring them from the back woods to school in town. These buses are on a real schedule and they stick to it. We have committed the time tables to memory. Your lard ass slowing us down for even a minute can cause us to miss our connection and have to wait half an hour for the next bus. Rumor has it that this type of behavior is what started the recent sniper spree in DC.

RULE 6:  If you are fat, just man up and admit it. There is no way your 300+ pound body is going to fit into seats designed for us normal people.  Don’t try to squeeze all that flab into the seats.  Stand in the aisle.  The exercise will be good for you.

RULE 7:  Don’t bitch about not sitting with your friends. We are all pretty much sitting next to strangers, get over it. It’s not like you can talk to them anyway (see RULE 1).  To think that we are going to get up so you and your sorority sisters can be all chummy on the train is laughable.  We are not nice people when it comes to things like that.

RULE 8:  You are going to be touched while you are on the train. As noted above, over 700,000 people ride Metro everyday. There is no way to not touch each other. Should you find yourself on the Orange line headed to Vienna between 4:00 and 8:00 in the afternoon you will understand why we call it the “Orange Crush”. The ugliest of girls has a chance of getting felt up on this line during peak hours.  All the bumps and touches are not personal, just a by-product of the un-programmed for success of Metro.

RULE 9:  Escalators are meant for climbing, not standing. If you are handicapped, have kids in strollers, or are sick then you need to use the elevators to move from level to level. If you are simply too lazy or too fat to climb, then get over to the right and stay there. This gets back to the rest of us having a schedule to keep (see RULE 5). You may be on vacation but the rest of us have places to be. Stand still on the left of the escalator and we’ll run you over. Even if you are our mom.

RULE 10:  The fare card machines can be confusing. I’ll concede this point to the clowns with the cameras around their necks. It takes all of us a while to catch on to the way those things work. Metro has a solution to this dilemma; it’s called employees. The very instant you become confused step out of the line and find an employee. They are paid to help you and are glad to do so. The people in line behind you will glad you did.

That’s it for now. I’m sure that I’ll think of more hints for you in the days to come.

Out.

At least that’s the opinion of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. They have declared that her birth certificate is illegal. Not invalid, illegal. As in she is breaking the law by being in possession of it.

She was born on a long since closed military base in Germany and the Germans (at least at the time) didn’t use raised seals on birth certificates. Virginia won’t take it as a legal document. The State Department form DS-1350 that she has used her entire life says that the United States government recognizes that she is a child of American parents born abroad, but the state of Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles says that it too is not a valid document. See, the problem with that form is that it is not green in color. According to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles all such documents are always green in color. Not that this particular document being 30+ years old might have something to do with the faded color.

Keep in mind that these are the same documents that have worked for years. Including being legal enough for the United States Army to accept them and add her to the benefits database when we got married a while back. So I guess our marriage must be illegal too.

What the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles will take to prove that you belong in this country is an expired passport. They’ll take one that hasn’t expired too, but what kind of sense does it make to not take a State Department document when they will take a document that is no longer valid for the purpose it was created for?

Welcome my best buddy in the whole wide world to the blogsphere. He’s set up shop at a place called The Downlow on the Lowdown. I think he should have stuck to the tag that THE BOY hung on him, Scott the Scared. Scaredy Scott is in the formative stages of his project so give some encouragement love while he’s finding his feets.

That’s it for now. I’m still searching for a good tag line to end these things, so if you have ideas leave it in the Comments box.

Out.