Ok. It’s now absolutely official. The tourists are back.
Do you want to know how I know? No, it’s not the hordes of fannypacked pastels running around the Mall. It’s not the explosion of cancerous vendors. It’s also not the traffic.
It’s the clumps of path-blocking tourists in the Metro. When DC was a commuter haven during the winter, people walked and got somewhere with a minimum of fuss. People walk in a straight line from Point A (escalators) to Point B (turnstiles). Occasionally someone will veer off to the side and update their SmarTrip card or get a farecard.
But no, not clumpus touristus. For them, the Metro is also a tourist area. So they have to stop and gawk at the following extremely fascinating items:
- Billboards
- Trash
- Trash Cans
- Fare machines
- Turnstiles
- Homeless People
- Metrorail Trains
- Lights
- Each Other
- Metrorail/Area Maps
- Gum Wrappers
- Metro Staff
- Even Those White Bricks That Make Up The Metro Wall
It’s a hazard, I’m telling you. You can be making your merry way straight through the Metro system like you always have and BANG there’s a clumpus touristus in your path. It always, without fail, is in the most inconvenient manner possible. For example — they’ll clump up, blocking a narrow pathway so that your only choices are to (1) wait or (2) attempt the dreaded Parting of the Clumpus.
Most of the time I wait, but there are undeniable pleasures to the Parting of the Clumpus. You get to see parents scrambling after their kids (especially if said kids are Running About), students looking bewildered at the Person from DC in their midst, or even the smell of fear wafting off of a terrified Senior Citizen. You know, they’ve all been told how there is a Criminal On Every Corner in DC and that they have to be careful.
In any case, tread lightly. Clumpus Touristus is here to stay for a while.
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Know what happened last week, i was kind of stunned. I was just watching a family of 5 get off. Mom, dad, 3 boys (all probably under the age of 6). Mom and dada were trying to figure out which exit to go out of. while one of the little boys, decided to run along side the train as it was moving. I mean he was so close to it.. then the mom saw him do that and screamed at him. I was just shocked at the mom’s behavior and the little boy’s behavior as well.
I hate clumpus touristus. they annoy me.
As I told you a couple days ago, every D.C. resident should be allowed to kick one stray tourist kid per day.
ADAM!! thats awful!! {yet oddly funny} sure they are annoying, but people who have never been here befor are always like that….im sure you were when you first got here…..
How come the DC’s Chamber of Commerce never bother to post the instruction for tourists how to use the Metrorail escalators via local equittetes?
I usually help tourists when they are in bind or lost on the way. What a good feeling! Most of time, tourists come to me with my trusting face. I did get some letter of thanks from tourists in mail or show their apprecation to me like buying me a dinner or whatever. I often tell tourists that they do not have to repay me with this kind of gratitude.
I did become good friends with straying tourists or new faces after they return home.
Human kindness will win the hearts and minds of tourists how they would perceive us, deaf people in the long run.
I usually get patient with some tourists who claim about their so-called fluency in ASL. I always ask them whose their ASL instructors. I kinda spend considerable time with them about the so-called ASL instructors who should be not teaching our precious language, blah.
RLM
Grrrrrr…. we’re not all bad !! In fact, I’m a really nice Clumpus. So is my father, and his father. Yes, my last name is actually “Clumpus”. It’s Lithuanian, not latin and it means “maker of wooden shoes”, not “annoying gork-necker” so please don’t “clumpus_all_together”, don’t you think I’ve taken enough slack with this last name already?
Let me know if you have any t-shirts printed, I’ll buy one to wear next time i’m in DC (I hear you have beautiful trash cans and gum wrappers there).
Look out DC… here comes the REAL CLUMPUS TOURISTUS !! ALL HAIL CLUMPUS TOURISTUS !!
your new pal,
jef clumpus,
vancouver canada
>>I’m not even joking, my name really IS CLUMPUS !