Reality my friends....is NEVER this pretty?

One of the more famous shots...she makes it look so fun...with this coy look as if to say "whoops...I can't believe this happened...".  At least she still looks beautiful and sexy...let me tell you how this really happens...in reality...

You are walking down a crowded, D.C. street on a muggy Saturday.  Just finished some shopping so your hands are full.  You look around...taking in all the sights and sounds...you glance in at the restaurant you are passing filled with customers all escaping the heat for an afternoon snack...when all of a sudden....WHOOOOOSH...suddenly an enormous gust of air rushes up from a vent that you didn't know you were walking on and instead of people...and the restaurant...all you see is the hem of your skirt.

You try not panic and make more of a scene...even though the thought of your frilly unmentionables on display for all to see consumes your thoughts.  You speed up and try to make it past the vent only to find that the vent goes on for half a block!  You try to push your skirt down...sadly it won't stay down because of the constant whips of air escaping the vents below...let alone the fact that your hands are full from the days activities.  Finally you get your senses together and realize that if you merely take one step to the left you will no longer be standing over the vent.  You try to go on walking as normal...fight the urge to put your head down and escape the scene of your embarrassing display...maybe even chuckle a bit to act like it was no big deal... you have to hold on to the shreds of dignity you have left.

Now this experience...purely fictional...taught me a few valuable lessons:

1. When walking down a street in D.C. PAY ATTENTION...you never know what exciting situations may confront you!
2. Put weights in the hem of your skirts...
3. Wear very large sunglasses so people can't actually see your face and be able to identify you later as the flasher...
4. Last but not least...even though my good friend Marilyn could pull it off...she had a crew setting things up to make everything perfect...REALITY...where there are no crews preparing us for such situations is UGLY...you can even ask those poor people in the restaurant.

Alright everyone...stay calm...now's not the time to lose our heads!!!!

So I am sitting in the the office the other week and receive the following e-mail:

Building Security has advised that the police have secured our building so that you cannot exit the building.  We do not know the nature of the situation and will provide more information when we receive it.  They will give us word if we need to take any other action.

uhh....words like "police" and followed by "secured" or "situation" never bring warm fuzzies...in fact those are the types of things you only want to hear on t.v....again....the first thing I think of is...there's a shooter on the loose!  (don't know what it is with me and my fear of being shot....) I never heard anything again for the rest of the afternoon....

I found out the next day it was a bomb threat....no biggy

Human Trafficking...it's a dirty business

D.C. comes ALIVE after five o'clock!  It is no wonder...the work day has come to an end and people emerge from their cold sterile cubicles into the streets, eager to leave the office behind and enjoy a night of freedom and leisure.  But, before one can embark on such a night...one has to bravely go where WAY too many have gone before...underneath the city's streets through dirty tunnels and passages...and cram onto germ-infested trains..stuffed with hundreds of other humans all desperate to get out of dodge!

Thousands of people pour into each station completely filling the platforms and every available space.  There are no lines...no sense of order.  People slowly squish closer and closer as the trains arrive trying to maneuver themselves in such a way guaranteeing they are the FIRST to get on.  I can't help but chuckle as I see grown men and woman running full boar (bodies, bags, briefcases, flying everywhere) trying to make it on the train...( "Hurry!!!! It's the last train out of Nam!!!!") only to then have the doors shut right before they make it..."NO" they yell...hand out dramatically...watching their train pull away.  And they are left, dejected, heaving from their physical exertion...for another 2 minutes...until the next train comes.

As devastating as it is to wait for two more minutes for the next train...it doesn't necessarily get any better once you make it on the train.  You are literally swept (it is either that or get trampled) onto the train as if caught in a river's current.  And just like a river's current does not ebb or change course when there is an object in its path...neither does the flow of "human debris" pouring onto the metro trains...pushing anyone standing in its path aside.  Once the car has been packed so tightly that the doors can barely close, it departs.  With every bump, turn, push on the break some part of you collides with some part of several other people...all the while trying to never make eye contact pretending you don't seem to notice.  Sometimes I wonder if there are cameras set up and the drivers make it as bumpy and jerky as possible just to see the awkwardness that ensues.  There was one ride in particular that no matter how I situated myself my posterior was smashed against the man behind me...I wanted to turn around and say..."what can I say...it's my best side"...but figured drawing more attention to the fact that my behind was "all up in his grill" would only make it more awkward.

Some of my favorite metro trips have included some woman preaching to the whole car that she was in hell and God saved her.  Let's just say...she had a LOT of passion.  Or, the time when, as usual...the train was overcrowded and this elderly Asian woman sitting down was reading her newspaper, and the backpack of the girl standing in front of her kept brushing her newspaper.  I watched as she continued to get more and more irritated until she started hitting the girl's backpack with her newspaper!  I have seen a number of uses for newspapers in my day i.e. wrapping for glass items, paper machete projects, fire starter, bedding for the homeless, spit wads, heaven forbid....reading, and even toilet paper...guess I have one more to add to the list.