Garden of good and evil
A community garden in Columbia Heights became something of a zoo exhibit when a late-night gardener found herself locked in.
Apparently, other gardeners hadn’t seen her and locked the garden on their way out. Because the garden doesn’t unlock from the inside, the trapped gardener was left pacing for an hour, fending off the taunts of passing teens.
At last, she caught the attention of a fellow gardener who was walking by — and who freed her from the petunia prison.
Don’t text and walk
Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells sported a quarter-size scrape on his forehead when he went to an anti-bullying event. Luckily, the wound wasn’t a sign that the leaders of the scandal-soaked John A. Wilson Building had converted the council chambers into a boxing ring.
Instead, Wells admitted he was the latest high-profile victim of texting and walking. The two-term lawmaker was distracted while heading to a meeting with interim Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, and ran smack into a Wilson Building wall.
“I wasn’t used to seeing him on the fifth floor,” Wells said of Mendelson, who picked up a new office when his colleagues selected him to fill in for former Chairman Kwame Brown.
Sneering at seersucker
Fittingly, it was a record-setting 99 degrees on Seersucker Thursday last week. But a Northwest man, coincidentally decked out in gray seersucker, found the annual ritual was not popular at the Tabard Inn on 17th Street, just five blocks from the White House.
Walking to his table in the restaurant, a couple sneered “seeeersucker,” and a few moments later another diner said, “Wearing a tie? Take it off.”
Whether the critics were motivated by fashion or politics, the man couldn’t help thinking of a comment made by a Boston Globe reporter at a literary conference last year: “I can always spot the Republicans in the newsroom. They’re the ones in seersucker suits.”
Know your city officials
Happy-hour conversation turned to local politics at Duffy’s Irish Pub off the U Street corridor after a few pitchers of Miller Lite.
“Who would be the next city leader to step down?” wondered three D.C. residents in their mid-20s.
Two of them settled on Mayor Vincent Gray, currently under a federal probe of his campaign finances.
The third asked: “We have a mayor?”
“Are you serious? This is a city. Cities have mayors.”
“I’ve only lived here 14 months. What’s his name?”
“Vincent Gray.”
“Do we have a governor?”
Tight squeeze on Metro
An out-of-town father was out of his element on Metro public transit, caught between maintaining his dignity and maintaining his herd.
The man bravely centered his body in the closing doorway of a Blue Line train, allowing his family to slip through. Other train passengers, familiar with the no-nonsense nature of D.C.’s sliding doors, watched on.
The train tightened its grip around the father.
“I’m being squeezed,” he yelled. “Help! It’s squeezing me.”
Pack leader-turned-panicked tourist, the man finally wriggled inside the very quiet train.
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