Back in 2006, I was stopped by U.S. Capitol Police while trying to shoot a reporter standup on the Capitol grounds.
Apparently I needed a permit to use a tripod, which I definitely did not have. If you haven’t heard the full story, check out this post, which has the details of what ended up being “one of those days.”
For a long time I was under the assumption the tripod permit was a completely made-up thing. In fact, the day I was on the Hill, the officers pointed me to an area where I could do my standup without the magic permit…except when I got to that area, the officers there had no idea what I was talking about.
So imagine my surprise this week when I told that story to a co-worker, and learned that at roughly the same point in time she actually had a Capitol tripod permit. That was like learning someone had made it to the end of a rainbow and found a pot of gold.
But I did take solace when she said that even with the permit, the officers weren’t totally clear on where she could use the tripod.
For those who weren’t reading the blog back in 2006, here are two related bonus links:
More questions from Capitol Police
A quick tripod-less story from this morning:
I was riding the Metro home from work, and a 20-something girl with an iPod got on the train. I wrote back in August that I feel strange listening to comical things on my iPod while riding the normally silent Metro. People look at you like you’re some kind of social outcast while you try to contain your laughter.
The girl this morning was fighting the same battle, and clearly losing. It’s worse when you have to stand, and are thus within everyone’s sight. She tried all the techniques for diffusing the situation, including putting her hand over her mouth, looking up at the roof of the train to try to hide her face, and the ever-effective staring at the floor and (I assume) thinking about un-funny things.
She could not have been happier to see a seat open up. At least then she only had to worry about the odd looks from the person sitting next to her.