April 20, 2004
Who needs locusts when you have middle schoolers?
Most days when I don't pack my lunch, I go to the steam table joint around the corner from my office. The food is decent and it's close enough that you don't need to put on your coat in winter to duck out for a little sesame chicken and ravioli.
When I went today, I was greeted by an unwelcome sight -- dozens of middle schoolers swamping the tables, yakking to one another and generally making a mess of things. Being from some dumb flyover country suburb (probably) they were amazed by the variety of food available at one location, and were, as is customary with that age group, fighting for position and status in various cliques, right in front of the fried rice I planned on getting a scoop or two on to my styrofoam take away tray.
What the hell? It's not like I work very close to any point of interest to tourists. The aformentioned lunch joint is between commercial office buildings and a large government department, so the neighborhood is populated mostly by pencil-pushers, something not of very much interest to your average 13-year-old.
School tour groups are why the downstairs area of Union Station is completely off-limits between the hours of 12 and 2. They run around, bumping into your tray, waving around their meal cards like a $10 bill at a strip club, telling each other (and not in an 'indoor voice') how amazed they are that there's a Cajun Grill and a Mama Ilardos in the same building.
Don't get me wrong - I like kids, even teenagers. I just can't handle more than a dozen or so at once. I don't even mind tour groups -- my school field trip to Washington rocked, and not just because the class bully got caught by a teacher while shoplifting at the Air and Space Museum gift shop. I just wish they wouldn't be let loose in a food court or a mall.
Perhaps the city could set up a feeding trough out by the Greyhound station for Hill-bound students to fill up on sloppy Joes before learning how a bill becomes law.
Posted by rj3 at April 20, 2004 12:57 PM
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