The Fallenposters Blog

What is with people?

Matt from Blacksburg drove up yesterday morning to attend a conference in DC. He crashed here last night and this morning, we all ventured into the city to do some touristy stuff.

We rode the Orange Line into Foggy Bottom and walked from the Metro station south to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a stunning sight. And the area was in no shortage of tourists. When we strolled over to the Korean War Memorial, we overheard a kid whining to his parents regarding walking from one end of the Mall to the other (make sure you read this with that high-pitched whiney-kid voice in your head):

“Can’t we just ask someone for a ride or something?”

I was floored. The distance from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument can’t be more than 5 or six blocks. Is that really an excruciating distance to have to hoof? Perhaps he had a recent hip-replacement surgery or has fallen arches. But I doubt it.

But I guess for a kid whose legs are much shorter than the average adult, there’s a lot more steps involved for any kind of distance walking. But if that kid was in some amusement park going ape trying to ride each and every roller coaster (at least twice), then I’m sure he wouldn’t be complaining at all. At least until he was dragged out the park by his exhausted parents.

But history and memorials and educational sites are “boring” to kids. I guess they just don’t cater enough to children’s ADD these days. Perhaps if Lincoln got out of his chair every hour to do a comical skit or if they installed an ultimate-super-fun-happy slide at the top of the Washington Monument, then maybe kids would be more interested in places like these (heck, I know I would!).

When I look back at it though, I guess I was probably just like that as a kid. Maybe that’s what irks me.