I looked utterly ridiculous, but I was out of options-- it was do or die. It was Laundry Day. So I set out with my wash wearing a yellow microfleece and red Hawaiin board trunks. Can you picture it? I payed no heed to the fact that the laundromat was almost two miles away-- I tramped there bravely, looking like a fool. Oddly enough, it was only in the tunnels where people stared.
***
The majority of my time in DC has been based out of a motel in Crystal City, which is not actually in DC, but a neighborhood in Arlington, Va. It has Metro access.
Crystal City is a peculiar place, adjacent to Reagen International Airport it seems mostly to consist of high-rise hotels, apartment buildings and aeronautic and military related office buildings. None of this is particularly strange, except for the fact that almost everything in town is connected by a vast system of underground tunnels.
There are probably four miles of tunnels, stretching from one end of town to the other, but they are more than just a pedestrian walkway-- littered with restaurants, stores, pharmacies, they function as an extrememly long shopping mall.
It is absolutely possible that, if one lived in an attached apartment building and worked in an attached office complex and shopped at the well-stocked stores and visited the undergroundgym and went to the underground doctor and optometrist and dentist, that they would never have to go outside. Ever.
***
These were the thoughts that occurred to me as I wandered through with my fleece and board shorts. Perhaps these staring people were mole people, so long removed from the outside world that they were frightened of someone so clearly from the surface. Or perhaps I just looked nonsensical. I imagine, dear readers, that it was actually an even combination of the two.
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