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I’m going to preface this by letting you know that there is nothing mean-spirited in what I’m about to say, and if you are offended by anything you read here, blame John Lennon and Paul McCartney for writing the song “Martha My Dear.”
The line in question: “When you find yourself in the thick of it, help yourself to a bit of what is all around you.” As an addendum to this line, I would add: “laugh.”
Obviously I’m not condoning schadenfreude or taking pleasure in the plights of others to boost one’s self-esteem, but there’s nothing wrong (in my book, at least) with soaking up the absurdity of the world around you and reveling in it. Put another way, the best thing about D.C. is not the monuments or the museums, or even the prospect of forging valuable networks in the political or business realms. The icing on the cake is the people the city attracts.
People-watching seems to have lost some of its luster in this long-distance age of Twitter and Skype. Many people are more concerned with what’s happening halfway around the world or what Brett Favre ate for breakfast than they are with what is unfolding before their eyes. I understand that; maybe you find the daily minutiae of your life so hopelessly insipid that you take comfort knowing that even the most interesting man in the world had to drop a button-down off for dry cleaning.
But I would venture to say that if Twitter updates are your thing, try taking a closer look at the quirky people who flock here on a regular basis. This past holiday weekend offered a particularly good sampling, but you can pretty much find funny people on a regular basis if you keep your eyes open. You can even do it on campus – Leo’s is an especially bountiful place to go people-watching. For the more adventurous types, here are some other good places to try:
Any Metro station is a good bet – the busier the better. You can watch people wrestle with the SmarTrip machines, mistaking their farecards for receipts and throwing them away, and the like. The talking machines are very entertaining, as customers often talk back. I once saw somebody tapping on the circular logo endlessly when prompted to “touch SmarTrip again,” clearly not figuring out that he was supposed to place his card there instead. Obviously, if you see someone continually struggling to navigate their way through the system, do the right thing and help him or her out. Commuting is stressful enough. If you’re not sure where to draw the line between people-watching and being a spiteful bystander, perhaps you need more practice before you try your new craft at the Metro.
[The National Zoo](https://nationalzoo.si.edu/default.cfm) is a safer place to work on your technique. Take the Metro there (Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan, Red line), but don’t loiter. Just wait outside the exit for a few minutes and count the confused tourists who ask “Hey, where are all the animals?” Then, head into the zoo and let the fun begin.
The zoo is a great place for people-watching, if for no other reason than it attracts lots of young children, who are often hard-wired to say funny things. Even better is that many of these children are too young to take themselves to the zoo, meaning they are accompanied by chaperones of all species, many of whom do not know the answers to the questions asked of them but offer responses anyway.
If you’ve been to the zoo, you may recall that one of the elephants is advertised as the result of genetic engineering, which one father egregiously misinterpreted. He proceeded to tell his family that the animal was in fact a woolly mammoth. As the saying goes, kids say the darndest things – but adults get away with murder. Several times throughout my visit, I heard grown men and women ask “Is that a real hippopotamus?” as if it were completely normal to expect that someone might construct a giant exhibit with a massive swimming pool so that a sculpture of a sleeping hippo wouldn’t look out of place.
You can find these eccentric people anywhere. Go to the National Mall and hear someone say “One, two, three, cheese!” to the Washington Monument as they snap a photo (it can’t smile back, you know). Go to a restaurant where your waiter calls you “friend” despite having met you seconds earlier and who keeps bringing something other than you ordered. With some patience and a little practice, soon you’ll be a pro. Happy people-watching.
Colin Nagle is a junior in the College. He can be reached at naglethehoya.com. Getting in Tune appears every other Friday.
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