Falling Through

General Washington was a badass.

He was six feet and two inches of hair-powdering, hatchet-wielding, false-teeth-wearing, cherry-tree-chopping, truth-telling, country-fathering goodness. And yesterday, the (observed) 276th anniversary of the General's momentous birth, also happened to be the first paid holiday I've had in almost two years.

Even a mandatory meeting couldn't dull the high that comes with a new job that grants me federal holidays. I have my own interns, now, two of them! I have a company-issued Blackberry, for chrissakes -- I'm a badass too, General Washington! I'm coming up in the world!

But while quickstepping down into the Foggy Bottom metro station under the mild duress of a light drizzle, my gray flats slipped and gave under me, abandoning me as I tumbled down the slick escalator steps as if I was falling right through the center of the earth, to come out the other side where people walk upside down.

...But that's nonsense, of course. I just wiped away the trickle of blood quickly forming on my left ankle, muttered a soft "I'm fine" to the slew of blandly curious onlookers, and limped toward the turnstiles with Belle & Sebastian persisting through my iPod earphones. Six minutes until a Largo-bound Blue Line.

President's Day was a bust.