Sunday, June 1, 2008

Spotted on the Key Bridge

The cherry blossoms all finished falling about two months ago, but I am still clinging to spring. My mission to walk to work as much as possible is still in full swing... sorry, I just got distracted by all the inadvertent rhyming. I apologize, but I think I'm just going to leave it since it happened organically.

Anyway, I still walk to work. It is the best decision I consistently make between Monday and Friday. There is nothing like meandering over the Key Bridge and looking out at the crew shells and the Kennedy Center in the morning sun. To be fair, my trip to work is nothing like that-- it's more like careening along at a power-walking pace and trying to avoid death by bicyclist. But the part about the crew shells and the Kennedy Center is true. It makes me want to skip out on work and go rent a kayak.

As it turns out, maybe some people indulge a similar seafaring urge. Most mornings on the bridge I pass these two guys walking into Rosslyn from Georgetown. I have started calling them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in my mind, extra emphasis on the Tweed part. Seriously, if it were ever slightly chilly, I am sure they would both be wearing tweed jackets. Given that it's pretty mild, they stick with the pastel Polo-khakis-boat shoes look. I have never seen them wearing matching shirts, but I am waiting for the day. My favorite part though is that--in addition to the Sperry's--one of them has croakies on his sunglasses at all times.

Now, I am paranoid about lots of things including somehow losing my grip on something and watching it plummet into the Potomac. As a result, no mugger will ever be able to steal my bag on that bridge, because I clutch it with a death grip at all times. But despite my own neurosis, I find it really hard to believe that this guy's sunglasses are really at risk. Does he think it's going to get so windy that he is going to need the croakies to keep the glasses on his head? Or around his neck, as it were?

No. He is really just that fratastic. And he probably wants us all to wonder if he is in fact going out for a sail after work-- which is legit, because if he were, I would totally support the croakies. But until that day, I will continue to believe that Tweedle Dum (you knew he would have to be 'Dum, right?) is the post college analog to that kid in middle school whose parents made him wear his retainer case on a lanyard so he wouldn't lose it.

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