Excuse Me, Is That Your Blog?

There are not many benefits to living in Washington D.C. The rent is astronomical. The people are tools. We don’t have representation in Congress. There are rats – flagrant rats that appear out of nowhere, demanding cheese like drug addicted homeless people. But to the city’s credit, it is very accessible. I have acquired sleeker and sexier thighs from the sheer amount of walking I do on a daily basis. I can walk to all the important places I frequent - grocery stores, bars, and my boyfriend’s house. Any place I can’t access by foot is merely a short metro ride away, at least on Monday-Friday (and where else to go on weekends but grocery stores, bars, and one’s boyfriend’s house). My perambulation serves as a source of exercise, meditation, and an act environmental conscientiousness.

Unfortunately, not everyone in the district is so keen on walking. Despite being rated as the second worst metropolitan area for traffic congestion, exorbitant fuel prices, and my previous observation that no one should need to drive in the city, there are a considerable amount of motorists on the streets of Washington D.C. And they’re all assholes.

Before living in D.C., there were only 2 times in my entire life (28 years at that point) that I was within seconds of death. One time, in early childhood, was at the aquarium in Baltimore, when I almost fell in the shark tank (they’ve since secured the area). The second time, in my adolescence, was when a hot iron almost fell on my face. Yet in just over one year of residency in the district, I’ve had countless unwelcome reminders of my mortality. Motorists in this town run me down like lions chasing gazelles on the Serengeti.

Let me make something clear: I am a prudent pedestrian. I obey traffic signals and observe crosswalks. I don’t just dart out into the middle of a busy road whenever I feel like it. I work in public health – we’re safety freaks. In spite of my caution, I frequently find myself standing like a deer in headlights, face to face with a car careening toward me like a bat out of hell. I remain there, dumfounded, reminding my would-be manslaughter that the walk signal is on, or that I’m in the middle of a clearly designated crosswalk. I hear all kinds of obscenities in return. My roommate once had a man get out of the car and shout, “What’s it gonna be lie to be right and dead?”. I’ve never had anything that drastic occur, but I wouldn’t be the least be surprised if it were to happen. Drivers in this city are egomaniacal bullies with reckless disregard for the lives of us lowly pedestrians. It’s bad enough that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of crosswalks, traffic lights, and other institutions of safety and order. But they add insult to injury by accusing ME of wrongdoing, when I’m clearly a) at the mercy of their death machines and b) a damn good upstanding citizen because I’m not polluting the air or supporting terrorist oil regimes. So put that in your exhaust pipe and smoke it, drivers.

I’m not sure what it is about D.C. in particular that makes the drivers so selfish and sadistic. I imagine it’s simply a byproduct of the general mentality of people in this city – a delusion of grandeur that they are so important that they must get where they’re going immediately, no matter whom they squish along the way. Glued to their blackberries (even while driving), they push their way around with wanton neglect for the safety of others. They can’t be bothered by crosswalks and traffic lights – they can afford high-powered attorneys to get them acquitted should they happen to commit vehicular homicide. Global warming? Terrorism? Oil dependency? These issues pale in comparison with the immediate comfort and convenience of self-anointed VIPs in the District of Columbia.

Another reason I surmise that people insist in driving in this scalable metropolis is that they are simply fat and lazy. This problem is not just endemic to the District of Columbia, it is a plague affecting our entire nation. One need look no farther than the fanny-pack clad tourists littering our Metro system (and I thank them for at least using public transit instead of renting cars) or grazing about the Pentagon City Mall to realize that America is morbidly obese. It’s a Catch 22 – they drive because they are fat, and thus they never lose weight because they don’t get off their fat asses to walk. Pretty soon they’ll all be flying around in lounge chairs with computers granting their every wish, ala Wall E. I can’t even imagine how urban planners will respond to this new traffic conundrum, but I know healthy, earth-loving pedestrians like me are going to have to look more than 2 ways when crossing the streets.

Here are the morals I’d like you to take away from this post, if you care to derive any valuable message. If you drive in D.C., take a serious inventory of your life and determine if you are driving out of necessity, ego, or laziness. If either of the later are the case, STOP DRIVING!!! You will save yourself some money, and get some much needed exercise. If you absolutely need to drive in D.C., please calm the fuck down. Put on NPR, classical music, smooth jazz – whatever it takes to reduce your unfounded angst. Observe crosswalks and traffic lights, and be patient as we pedestrians cross the street. After all, we’re saving your lives with our carbon neutrality.

And if you’re a fellow pedestrian like me, keep on shaking your ass. But watch yourself.