Bowie Roadhouse

On a typical day, a Washington urbanite need never stop at the Texas Roadhouse in Bowie, Maryland. It is a chain restaurant with faux-casa decor and a parking lot ringed with pick-ups. However, a Washington jet setter who gets stuck in airport traffic, misses her flight, and furiously reroutes through Bowie on her way back to the city, will find the Roadhouse a welcome haven.

At the Roadhouse, there are people like Melissa who will pull a refrigerator out from the wall to plug-in your cell phone; and Meghan, who will give you detailed directions back home then write them on a receipt with a mechanical pencil. More than likely, an older couple at the corner of the bar will offer to watch your beer while you go to the bathroom.

If your decision-making abilities are at all stymied by starvation or frustration, fear not! The Roadhouse menu refuses to intimidate. As you know, “Roadhouse” is synonymous with “steak house” (You knew that, right?) and considering this shop’s proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, you will obviously stay on the turf side of surf. New York Strip: boring, Filet Mignon: yeah right. The only items left are the Ribeye and a flock of sides!

If you’re cutting back on fat-marbled-beef, order a dinner salad with nutrition-negating croutons and dressing, dry table bread, or a baked sweet potato that is actually a yam. After all, there is nothing a pound of butter can’t fix. Wash-down with a soothing Blue Moon draft, and prepare to share your yarn. At the Roadhouse, traffic stories are king.

“I was in the middle lane, then moved to the right, and just as I did that…”

“You should-of moved to the left lane right when you saw that black sign! I always do that and I never have a problem!”

And so on.

In an hour’s time, the food, beer, and camaraderie will ease your Air Tran angst, and Melissa and Meghan will send you on your way. You might even forget that you charged your cell behind a cooler so you could scream at an airline representative on the drive home! Rest assured that the inching inbound traffic will jog your memory.

Self Inflicted

This evening, an attractive woman in a brown t- shirt and well-fitting jeans climbed out of her gridlocked car and invited a truck driver to run her over.

COME ON! she yelled, arms raised, fingers twitching. COME ON!! she yelled again, COOOOOMMMMMEE OOOON!!! until the truck’s enormous grate inched forward. Pedestrians paused. The woman stepped closer, into the rippled air that stood between her and a very strange death. COME ON! The truck inched forward again.

Four blocks down, the source of the gridlock pulsed at its center– visible only to those directly beside it. Something (someone) had fallen off Key Bridge.

What must have been hundreds of drivers groaned past both suicidal scenes, penitent at first; far less inspired to speed off in a fury. 

Maybe this effin traffic isn’t so bad after all.

You Can’t Play

During the era of child-centered, adult-castrating, everyone-is-a-bully education reform, some well-meaning child psychologist coined the phrase “You can’t say ‘you can’t play’’’. The goal of this catchy playground policy was to eliminate social rejection and transform the world into a fluffy bubble of love and acceptance. You can’t say you can’t play!

An astute observer of playground politics will note that the only people adhering to this rule are parents, who seem to think that they, too, are not allowed to tell anyone they can’t play—namely their own children.

The dragging mother of a striped-tights tot has this to say: “Sweetie, I need to do a few more things at home so we’re going to have to leave in a minute, and when that happens I don’t want any fussing, okay? Didn’t you promise mommy no fussing? Good, so we are going to go in juuuusst a minute” to which her daughter responds by screaming and running in the opposite direction.

Nearby, Napoleon himself stands atop a slide and announces to a throng of kids “If you don’t care about my dog, then you can’t play!” and commences a riotous game of tag. Those who agree to his terms rapturously join the fray, those who don’t  jump on a spinning tire or continue eating sand.

On this playground, the only people hurt by “you can’t play” are adults. The kid-centered kids either buck up or back off, unwilling to let three silly words ruin their play.

Dismissal: 3:10

It is 3:15 PM at the Palisades Public Library, and the second floor has turned into a veritable romper room. You can spot first-timers because they are looking around for the librarian, trusting that at any moment she will silence the ruckus with one terrifying ssshhhhhhhhh!

But in this Reading Room, the shhhh!never comes. Neither does the librarian. She is downstairs, stoically guarding the main entrance. When future readers of America approach her glass door, she wards them off with scowls and sass (a preventative measure that, incidentally, also allows her to stay sedentary for hours on end).

Upstairs, children and doting adults are left to wander through the curiously copious collection of books– really, the shelves are swelling with books. Bright-spined meticulously alphabetized books. Full-color, national geographic, original edition, lithographed books—right there for the taking!

And taking they are! Children are gleefully reading! They are huddled in threes giggling at prose!

The only sign that anything’s amiss is the table of Polo-ed private school boys who glare at the public malaise with a mix of envy and doubt.

Reading is not FUN, they seem to say.

The Year of the Swine

Mini spokespeople for the CDC are popping up all over area playgrounds. The insurgence of these tiny sani-police can be explained by the advent of the 2009-10 academic year—a year that could be aptly renamed “The Year of the Swine”. In the first week of school, the average elementary public school student was treated to no fewer than sixteen hours of direct instruction on hand washing technique.

And a brilliant campaign it was that prompted a minute Pakistani boy to yell, “It is dangerous to stick your hand in your mouth when you have a cold!” only minutes before he licked the entire length of the slide while sailing down head-first.

“Don’t forget your ‘safe sneeze’!” hollered a charming Florence Nightingale as she rested her lollypop on the top of a trash can before returning it to her mouth with nary a shudder.

Clearly, the CDC has nothing to fear. Its most vulnerable population—those under the age of twelve with no immunity to the swine—are doing their part to educate the masses. Even the teensiest tikes count to twenty with soap in their hands. Even the muddiest preschoolers have a pocket hand sanitizer. Never you mind that they still eat boogers!

These kids are serious about hygiene.