Summer in the City

If you like rats, kickball, and Miller Lite, 18th Street is the place for you

Having lived in the District for less than three months, I would appear nothing short of foolish if I attempted to write about the place with the authority of a seasoned veteran. On the other hand, I have seen enough to understand some of its merits and pitfalls, even if my estimations remain crude and lacking in nuance.

Jessica Cutler, author of the steamy sexposé The Washingtonienne (a reconstruction of her original blog can be accessed here), has famously described Washington as “Hollywood for the ugly,” and an hour spent on 18th Street in Adams Morgan certainly does nothing to quash this appraisal. But there one finds other, more alarming trends than the mere homeliness of the citizens.

For example, there is the utterly astounding number of kickball players walking to and from their games. Halfz has already commented at length about this, but we remain mystified as to how such a dubious “sport” has attained a level of popularity to rival that of virtually any other social activity (more can be learned, perhaps, here). Close examination of a game in progress revealed two disturbing facts: the competition is sufficiently fierce to require the employment of umpires; and the umpires themselves take their jobs so seriously as to use ball/strike counters.

More alarming than the kickballers are the rats. One might think that growing up on the mean streets of New York City would provide ample desensitization to the necessary urban evils of insects and rodents. After all, a rat running along between the rails (or, as I once witnessed, desperately trying to copulate with a female rat) makes the wait for the Subway fly by in no time. However, the rats in Washington are enormous, fearless, and ubiquitous. They scamper about freely not just in the metro or secluded alleyways, but on busy streets and outside fashionable nightclubs. They do not move furtively as one expects of a rat, but instead saunter along casually without a care in the world.

The situation with cockroaches is little different. In most parts of the city, the arrival of 10 pm each evening seems to signal the creatures, who emerge by the thousands and turn the sidewalks into a kind of moving, insect carpet. Entering an ill-lit basement apartment under such conditions is a harrowing experience, to say the least. I could continue at some length in this nauseating vein.

If I were to epitomize Washington by mention of a single, curious fact about its everyday mechanisms, I would point to the habit of metro train doors to remain shut for up to five seconds once the train has come to a stop in the station. Outside advisors identified this as one simple problem that, if remedied, might contribute to more reliable service. The recommendation was ignored, however, and the infuriating lag persists.