1. Last weekend Tree came out to visit me. As we hopped on the metro we noticed an obviously homeless dude with a polka-dotted piece of luggage (with a crumpled up tissue shoved underneath the handle) and a bath towel over his face and another one over his lap. I've seen this dude another time on the metro, and some random passenger lady asked me if his luggage belonged to me! "Do I look homeless to you, lady?!" I should have shouted. Well anyway, we believe the purpose of the towels were to clean up the blood that was coming out of the disgusting sores covering both of his legs. Don't they put lepers in colonies anymore?! Weird. He randomly started talking/complaining about how the metro drivers turn off the air conditioning. Just be grateful there is a roof over your head for the next 4 stops, and that your legs are still attached to your torso, dude. I'm only sounding so mean right now cause I don't know how to deal with feeling so sad for him.
2. Last night while waiting for the metro, on my way home from Dupont Circle where I spent the evening with my intern buddy Margaret and her friend, I saw a crazy ass half homeless dude in an old fashioned suit trying to be a smooth talking pimp. This man was obviously out of his mind. He went up to this girl leaning against a pole and started talking to her in a really soft voice while moving his arms all weird. I tried to walk further down the platform cause I had a feeling he was getting on my train, and sure enough he did. He proceeded to walk up and down the aisle doing a little jig until the next stop, at which point he got off the train, and walked back into it, the next car down. I watched him through the connecting doors. He picked up a newspaper and posed against one of the poles, until at the next stop he got off that car and entered back into mine. At this point he sat down in the empty chair next to the girl sitting behind me and I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see him grab her hand and kiss it, like a true creepy gentleman and say "Sorry I come off so strong, baby."
3. The best thing I've heard at the museum so far, came via a voicemail on our Welcome Center answering machine. I wish I just had a transcript of it, but I'll do my best to relay this. "Hello this is *George Bloom speaking. I just wanted to see if the children at the Space museum had any ideas about what to do to clean up this oil spill in the gulf of Mexico! Maybe nobody will listen to ya, but perhaps you're young and naive enough to believe that something can be done and make a difference. You know, I was one of those kids who 50 years ago believed we could put a man on the moon! ........ Well this has been *George Bloom. Over and out! Have a nice day!" *Name perhaps different, cause I can't really remember. Some of the best parts are definitely being omitted here due to my lack of memory, but this was the basic idea behind it. I guess he called during Hurricane Katrina a few years back, and that message is also still in our saved messages.
While I've been pondering a solution for the oil spill, I've also been hard at work entering in tour reservations, filing cancellations, answering visitor inquiries like "Where is the black hole on display?" and other ridiculous things, typing up comment cards from such visitors as this huge dude who was pissed at how big our museum is because it is exhausting to walk through, and I've been getting to know Margaret, whose dad turns out to be a magician. I found this out after she borrowed my phone one night and couldn't get a hold of her parents. So the next day I got a call from some lady (who I later found out is her mother) who asked me, "Did you call this number? Were you looking for a magician? Perhaps for a children's birthday party? Did your husband maybe call looking for a magician? Your number is most definitely on our caller ID." Needless to say we were both very confused until later Margaret cleared things up and referred me to her dad's magician website. If you're interested, it sounds like he really knows how to have a good time.
I'm reading more about Amelia Earhart, and I think I want to get my private pilot's license someday. Maybe I'll be the first woman to eat a tofurkey sandwich while flying upside down!
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