There are many things in this world that I don’t really understand or can’t do or foresee. But I was pretty sure there’s someone out there who’s probably being paid pretty well for knowing these things, predicting them, and getting these things done. Or at least make sure they get done. As I get older, I realize more and more that there really isn’t anyone doing things that I don’t really understand and/or can’t/don’t see coming. And if they do, then they don’t know exactly how to do it any more than I do. The feeling that everyone is on their own grows every day.
I’m pretty sure it’s not the job of the Nationals GM Alert the DC police that they’ll have skydivers in a pregame ceremony, complete with a plane they can jump out of to circle the DC area. I’m also pretty sure it’s not Dave Martinez’s job either. It’s probably someone in sales promotions and marketing, and I suspect it’s someone lower down the totem pole. Whoever it is, they forgot to call. I get it. I also hate talking on the phone, although I enjoy talking to people (“but you hate people. But I love gatherings, isn’t that ironic?”). Someone probably figured out that you can’t text the cops and somehow screwed up the whole task. Still, DC gets a little nervous with unidentified planes circling around.
I could joke about how easy it is to stall Congress this way, except that Congress is always stalled. It’s disheartening how vocal decorated corpse Nancy Pelosi’s words were about the mix-up when there are many real things to get upset about that she could actually do something about, although it would likely end up in her face breaks irreparably.
Still, I like to picture the face of whoever was tasked with alerting the authorities when word got around that they had indeed caused a panic in the capital. It’s like you spill something and watch the puddle swell towards a power strip or something, and there’s that brief moment where you wonder if you didn’t just begin the chain of events that is ending with it becomes that the building is in ashes. Or when I accidentally flushed the knob to my girlfriend’s bathroom door down the toilet (I seriously did).
It’s kind of hard to understand how such a small acorn can turn into such a sinister oak. Your mind cannot do the calculations in time to stop it before it has grown much larger than you could have ever imagined. And then there’s the paralyzing thought of how to explain this to the right people, and with the fast-dwindling hope that you can do it without portraying yourself as a world-class nincompoop.
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They will probably pay with their job. But they will have a story for life. It’s probably worth it.
