Don’t come visit my city!

That’s right, please stay at home, don’t visit, don’t come tour Washington DC until you learn some manners.

Today I decided to come back to the office a bit early before the day was over, as it was the last day at my client.  Big mistake.  For those of you who don’t know DC springtime is major tourism time.  It is also the Cherry Blossom Festival right now.  Plus most tourists try not to travel metro around rush hour as that is us locals designated time and we don’t put up with crap, you will be put on your ass if you can’t handle a city commute.

So forgetting all this with my addled brain I decided to go to the office around one.  First of all I get to the station just as my train is rolling in, I’m all like sweet!  I am lugging my huge audit bag with me so I try and go through the wide turnstiles to go down to the train, of course it doesn’t work, so I’m stuck struggling to get through the small one in time.  I start hurrying knowing I have less than a minute to get on the train before it leaves.  Of course two slow tourists are on the escalator before me and in my way.  Knowing it wasn’t life or death I decided to be calm and not yell at them and just wait for the next one.

So after about five minutes the next train comes, pretty empty, I’m rockin.  I sit down in an empty seat (in fact most of the train was empty) and sit my audit bag in the aisle up next to my seat.  So I’m jamming to my Ipod and all of a sudden during a stop a woman walks up next to me and just stares at me.  I am a bit taken aback so I look around and realized that in my daze of funky grooving that the train has filled up and the seat next to me is one of the last ones.  I look back at her (still getting the death stare), I ask if she’d like to sit down.  Instead of nicely taking up my offer and moving so I could get up and move my huge audit bag out of the way so I can get out and she can sit down, she says in the most snotty way possible, “Yes I’m trying to sit down”.  Remember she never asked or anything just stared.  So now I’m a little pissy and I’m trying to get up so she can sit, she does not move, I practically trip over my audit bag which is in the way of me getting out of the seat (since she won’t move so I can actually move the bag properly).  I get so fed up I let loose an expletive and something about you know I have a damn big bag here and storm down the aisle and wait by the door for the next two stops.

So I’m fuming at this point of course, I tried to be nice to the woman and she was a jerk back.  So we roll up to Metro Center and I’m trying to get off an people behind me are cutting me off trying to get off the train with my excessively large wheeled work equipment, finally I get out and of course metro center is packed with tourists, meandering about, not looking where they are going, not caring that people are trying to move behind them.  I get to the escalator to go down to the blue/orange lines and of course its packed as usual, I’m coming from the left side and knowing to cut across to the right and stand riding down with my bag is going to be a nightmare, I shorten the handle and pick it up to carry it down as I walk down the left side.

Lets pause for a secondary rant here.  There are these people called escalefters.  I hate them.  I don’t hate many groups of people as a whole, I try to only dislike certain people, but in my mind an escalefter is the lowest form of life.  An escalefter is someone on an escalator that is wide enough for two people who stands on the left.  Common courtesy and protocol is for people to stand on the right and walk on the left.   If you are from east gish country America learn it, love it, live it.  You walk on the left, the flow of foot traffic is great and we all go on our merry way.

So back to the story.  I’m holding my ginormous audit bag and attempting to walk down the left of the escalator when I realize, hey we aren’t moving.  Well technically we are moving since the escalator is moving, but stay with me, you know what I mean.  I look down the escalator.  THERE HE IS.  A 40ish tourist ESCALEFTOR!  If I was the crocodile hunter I’d yell Crikey, before I jump on his back and wrestle him to the ground, but alas I’m just a mild mannered accountant.

Finally he gets off but its too late I’ve already ridden most of the way down while holding my audit bag, frustrating, annoying, not the end of the world I suppose, but there is this other habit tourists have that not only drives me crazy but is dangerous.  Move your little fanny pack butt out of the way at the bottom of the escalator.  Not sure if you know this but escalators move, they don’t care if you are in the way at the bottom.  So here I come getting off the escalator and there are families and kids being plowed down by my bag and feet.  It’s almost like one of those stampedes on the way to Mecca.  I finally just snap and yell get the **** out of my way you ***-**** tourists.

To which I get nasty looks of course, because, I’m such a rude bastard.  As if!

To finish my thought, don’t come to DC, don’t come to Maine (oh boy don’t get me started on those tourists), don’t go anywhere but your own little corner of the world if you can’t be respectful.  Some people are in a hurry, some people are living their daily lives, some people can’t go on vacation until Memorial day in Florida (t-1.5 months).  Show some respect, be polite, and be aware, and for damn sure stay the hell out of my way!