I currently live in Washington, D.C., the capital city for many of America’s elected officials, and a city viewed by most Americans and many foreigners as one of the most powerful in the world. Unfortunately, as is almost always the case with (perceived) proximity to power, it also appears to be a capital place for those whose ratings on the self-determined personal importance scale rank well off the charts.
A few suggested survival tactics for those who live here but who don’t want to start absorbing the air of self-importance that is apparently carried in the very water might be the following:
1) Throw out your TV. The reason this is an excellent idea is so that you can avoid having to constantly re-program your children’s social interaction habits by habitual and tiresome reiteration of the following conversation with them:”No, Serena, normal people do not shout past each other in all their conversations, interrupting each other mid-sentence while wearing constant ‘gotcha’ smirks. That is the behavior of the strange species known to take two forms: the self-important politician mugging for the cameras and the ratings-hungry TV ‘journalist.’ And no, Jonathan, just because our elected officials can lock each other out of random rooms in the Capitol whenever they get angry with each other because one of them got the special Superman pencil the other one wanted does NOT mean you can lock your brother out of your room because he took your eraser. No, I don’t care if it’s not fair that they can do that and you can’t…life is not fair. ”
Besides, if you do have a TV set, keeping it off as much as possible can keep you less painfully aware (on a literally minute-by-minute basis) of what those fine politicians are doing with the tax dollars you are required to hand over by law while watching helplessly as they spend not only these tax dollars but also the ones they anticipate will come in 40 years from now. Yes, come to think of it, if you’d like your child to understand that he or she must spend (or not spend) only the money they have now, not the money they are certain they will win in the lottery 25 years from now, it would be best if you don’t expose them to the spending habits of our D.C.-based elected senators and representatives. Most of them don’t appear to have ever met a dollar of another American’s money that they didn’t fantasize about spending. And they are also very, very, very good at making those fantasies come true…yesterday.
So yup, if you’d like your household members to understand fiscal responsibility, please do consider keeping the news channels (especially those that focus on politicians and politics 24/7) mostly off-limits in your household. Bonus: there is a plethora of news sources available in today’s multi-media-rich environment that don’t necessarily require having to sit patiently with eyes glazed over (waiting for the real news) as people shout at each other, call names, harangue one another, and infer really ugly, nasty things about one another’s children and mothers. Just saying.
2) Develop the acting skills to portray narcolepsy very convincingly. This pays rich dividends: when people in any and every social situation imaginable start with the self-important prattle (ie, “I work for the official who works for the policy wonk who works for the assistant director who works for the director who works for the czar who works for the President. I’m only 6 degrees of separation away from the President of the United States himself! I work only 6 people away from the most important man in the world. I’m so terribly busy all the time because my input is so important for every matter I can think of for every problem that faces our country right now….blah blah blah.” Mercifully, you don’t have to hear any more of their terribly important input because, in fact, you fell into your self-inflicted narcolepsy right around the 3rd person of separation from the Prez, and you’ll be waking up as soon as you hear that your verbal harasser has moved on. Try it sometime…you might end up swearing by it for at least as long as you live here.
3) Move away. If all else fails for you, and you find yourself becoming insufferably full of constant self-congratulation despite your very best efforts, you can pack up and go elsewhere…to quite a few places in the United States, come to think of it, where the first questions on meeting someone are not automatically, “What do you do?” and “Whom do you work for?” and “Where did you go to school?” The semi-literal D.C. translations of the prior three questions: What do you do=Is the job you work more high-status or well-paid than mine? Whom do you work for=Are the people you know more important than the people I know? Where did you go to school=Is your network of classmates as powerful, wealthy, upwardly mobile, well-connected, and highly educated as mine? (Your responses to the prior three questions generally help to determine how much you’ll get bothered or not bothered at the average D.C. social or political event.)
On the other hand, if you do choose to move away, you will leave one of the most richly fertile environments that I know of for keen observation of the human condition and huge enjoyment of the extraordinarily vast and broad folly of human nature itself. This free entertainment is made triply mirthful by the volatile additions of (perceived) power, prestige, and wealth into the mix.
Yes, Washington, D.C. is definitely what I’d gleefully call a “target-rich environment” when it comes to the hilarity of human foolishness. This 24/7 entertainment more than makes up for the loss of the TV…and it’s free to boot! It’s one of the many things that makes living here so great after all…but that’s fodder for another post, another day. 
I loved your article on how to remain sane while living in Washington,DC Love, you., Mom
Hi, Mom! Glad you enjoyed it—politics here are a little different than they are in Watford City, aren’t they?
Thanks for dropping by the site—love you, too!
Using narcolepsy as a way to combat and survive the hilarity hotbed of human foolishness is a great suggestion.
thanks for a cultural view of dc. it seems to have a concentration of talent. from my tv view, many seem fluent in fallacious propaganda for the less informed. i wish there were more concentrations of talent in rural area + less people guessing + assuming.
Wait a minute… is that why you’re always snoozing on the couch?
And from experience, you can still look back on DC with hilarious mocking, while still remaining a safe distance from the contamination zone.
Oh, Tiffany, you have divined my secret! Shhhh…let’s not tell anyone else.
And Jackie, your statement about how many talking heads on TV seem “fluent in fallacious propaganda” is hilarious! I would say, though, that even though there is indeed a great deal of talent, brains, and opportunity here in D.C., rural areas still have the greatest concentration of people with good common sense as compared to anywhere else I’ve ever lived. (Of course, I can only speak from my own experience of growing up in rural North Dakota; I can’t speak for anyone else.)
Interesting article. I wish that Narcolepsy was that easy to turn off and on. If you had it, I promise you that you would not use it as a subject of satire. I do, however, wish so much that I could just act like I had it. I am sure that I may come off to some as a killjoy, but I have Narcolepsy, and it has changed my life completely. I think you are a great writer. It just hurts when people write things that make fun of an illness. I guess it just hurts more when your the one who has it.
Go easy,
Ja
Thank you for your comments, Ja. I can imagine that life has completely changed for you since discovering that narcolepsy is something you have to live with. It is certainly not easy to live with serious ongoing medical challenges, as I know from experiences within my own family. As you correctly pointed out, however, this particular post is satire…and I am not making fun of those who have the challenge of living with this particular illness. I am instead making light of the human tendency toward pomposity and self-importance. I will continue to use satire at different times in the future, and that satire will never be used to make fun of things we can’t change (ie, mental or physical handicaps, ethnicity, gender, etc.). It will be applied instead, however, to attitudes and actions that we can make human choices about. At no time in this article do I mock those who struggle with the challenge of narcolepsy. Instead, I make light of the boorish behaviors and attitudes of those who drive us to wish that we were temporarily asleep instead of awake. Hope this helps–