I saw the craziest-yet-normal woman I've ever seen in my life at Union Station yesterday

[YOY]

So I went to Union Station in DC (across the street from where I work) to pick up some cash for the week. My bank's ATM is kind of in the Parking garage area next to the tour bus kiosk. It's a short jaunt and a minor pain-in-the-ass to avoid a fee, but I need the exercise.

A little 411 for those who don't know: Union Station is a bustling combination of tourist, commuters, employees, vendors, and homeless folks in the center of DC. The trains all leave out of Union and there is a big Metro station and the Greyhound Station is nearby. Also, a good many of te cities tour busses leave from there.

So I'm getting my money and I overhear this midwestern tourist woman with two teenage girls ask the tour bus kiosk operator: "Do you have any tour buses that show the terrorist attack sites in DC?"

"What??? Ma'am we don't talk like that here. If you want to see the Pentagon you can go to the Pentagon Metro station."

"No I mean all the other ones that have happened. I want to see all the other terrorist attacks in DC."

"Ma'am we don't talk like that here. I'm going to have ask you to step away from the window."

With that the woman took her daughters and stepped away from the window and stood close by me grunting something about "terr'wrists"... I really was just freaked out by the absurdity of it all and her resolute belief that we are constantly under attack in DC. I had to give her a look up and down. She looked like a normal midwestern tourist (gaudy clothes, overweight, like my own mother)...not a flag wearing freak, nor a bible beater.

Now, I'm a midwesterner myself so I don't bat an eye at tourists from the Midwest. DC is a cool city to visit and we're usually happy to help tourists reach a destination...but this woman was severely OFF-F***ING WHACK...and yet looked so normal and nonchalant in asking about the plethora of tourist attacks we have suffered...

Seriously...where are these people getting their 411?!?!?!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. She may be one of those people who has her ears glued to RW radio

and for all I know, one of those whack jobs might be claiming that DC is in ruins from terrorist attacks.

[YOY]

4. That's the only sense I can make of it

It just sounded so insane.

Sometimes they close down Union due to a "suspicious package" but it's inevitably some yokel who has left a bag behind mistakenly.

[Ian David]

2. If she wants to see the casualties of the terrorist attacks...

http://pix.alaporte.net/pub/d/9594-1/Arch+10+-+Constitution+5.JPG

She can go to The National Archives and view The Constitution that the Bush Terrorists have destroyed.

[Robb]

3. Ouch.

Nice one.

[yellerpup]

5. You got that right.

Terrorism from within.

[hisownpetard]

10. Awww, SNAP!

[madinmaryland]

6. "all the other ones that have happened"

:wtf:

[YOY]

8. Exactly what I thought when I overheard it.

Seriously!

:wtf:

[Freddie Stubbs]

7. Terrorists attacked in the Capitol Building in 1954

Four Congressmen were shot.

[Virginia Dare]

12. Ford's Theatre, 1865.....n/t

[LiberalEsto]

9. Faux news

The poor thing is obviously brainwashed.

[madrchsod]

11. if i remember correctly.....

it was a long time ago...was`t there an anthrax attack? or something like that? was`t it something about letters to some senators?.....maybe i just had a bad dream....

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Send her to the Whte House. That's the terrorist stronghold in DC.

[HamdenRice]

14. I DESPISE tourists at the World Trade Center

It blows my mind to see these idiots staring at a hole in the ground. They call home on the cell phones and say in hushed voices that they are at "ground zero." The place is crawling with tourists now and the people who sell them stupid shit like flags and lapel pins.

There are crowds of these morons milling about dressed like giant children with shorts, fanny packs, sneakers, white socks and t-shirts.

The site of mass murder has become a gaudy tourist trap.

What galls me the most is that so many of them have southern and midwestern accents and I assume perhaps wrongly that they at least one time voted for the moron who is responsible for the attacks (Bush to CIA: you covered your ass, you can go now) and they probably supported all the war crimes he committed justified by "ground zero."

[Stinky The Clown]

15. Those sterotypes you reference ............

......... are completely understandable. I view a LOT of stuff through that same filter. Ands I am far less willing to grant the benefit of any doubts. Yeah, I know that's wrong. But I can't help myself.

My passion against the morons who got us where we are glows white hot. White.Fucking.Hot.

[Lex]

16. When I went to NYC, I didn't go there for those reasons.

It seemed so wrong to me for it to be a tourist trap with people taking their pictures in front of it, etc. Ugh. Disrespectful and horrible.

[YOY]

17. and right across the street is a discount store...

or was one last I saw when I passed through there.

[Marrah_G]

28. The thought of that bothers me as well

Not sure if that is because I am from the Boston area, but I have never heard people from around here wanting to see ground Zero, except for the professionals that wanted to go help in the days following the attacks.

I also get pretty irritated when I hear some of the conspiracy theories, like they were commercial planes and people weren't in them, that sort of thing.

And what is with the movies. Way to soon. I haven't watched any of them. To painful. Some things are best left alone.

It's a shame there isn't a nice park there with a reflecting pool and a memorial. The thought of building over it makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, just my rambling 2 cents.

[sinkingfeeling]

18. ".. the plethora of tourist attacks we have suffered." LOL!!!

[YOY]

20. My words not hers

I don't think she would have known what a "plethora" is...

[sinkingfeeling]

22. I know they're your words, but didn't you mean to say, "plethora of terrorist attacks"? That's what

the lady was asking about.

[YOY]

23. Yes.

That's what I meant to say.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. I'll bet she thought the WTC was in DC.

What 411? TERRAH TERRAH TERRAH
It's all she hears, and it's all she wants to hear.

[kickysnana]

21. A corollary. Schizophrenics fit in today because of tiny cell phones

Yesterday I was stopped at a stop sign and there was a man about 30 talking loudly and pacing up and down. Thirty years ago I could be pretty sure he was talking to someone who really wasn't there. Now he could be just talking on his cell.

[hunter]

26. With a fits-in-the ear cellphone one could wander around all day...

... talking to imaginary people.

It might be fun for someone who wasn't schizophrenic.

[nealmhughes]

24. Tourist to me: "Where is Madison Square Garden?" Me: "Right there,

at Penn Station, right across the street." Tourist: "No come on, I may be from out of town, but that building is ROUND!" Me: "Sorry, I was just kidding. It's pretty far, better flag a taxi." Ten seconds later, tourist hails taxi. Driver starts to laugh and points across the street.
Tourist walks across the street, not laughing.

My very young nephew visiting me on Long Island: "Uncle Neal, where is the Statue of Liberty? Are you rich? Why do you have a yard?" Me: "Russ, it is on another island, we'll go there tomorrow by boat. No, but I pay rent like I was rich. I guess the tomatoes wanted some place to live, this is Riverhead, son, not the Bronx or Manhattan, we have farms here."

[YOY]

25. Meh...I don't like to f*** with tourists' heads

Now FReep protestors? Yeah...anyone who laughs at the "Mall" in DC because it hasn't any stores needs to be flogged.

[hootinholler]

27. I would have sent her to Walter Reed. n/t