Calling all tourists

It is tourist season in the nation's capital, which began April 1st and will run through next March. This week many tourists are here for the Cherry Blossom Festival, which commemorates Japan's gift of enormous quantities of cherry trees to the United States in 1912. 
Normally the cherry trees herald the arrival of spring, although this year the arrival of spring was followed by the hasty departure of spring and the reappearance of Old Man Winter, who believes firmly that Punxsutawney Phil the Groundhog decreed 16 more weeks of winter back in February, not 6. The trees, no doubt confused by whether or not they are supposed to be blooming, nevertheless carry on beautifully as usual. They are, after all, Japanese.


But back to the tourists. Tourists are easy to spot here. Although they, like many of us commuters, wear sneakers, they do not wear them with dress pants or skirts as many of us do. When they are walking, whether on a crowded sidewalk or in a crowded subway station, without warning they will suddenly stop, as if their sneakers had thrown an Off switch, and there they remain, rooted to the ground while hundreds of sneaker-clad skirts and dress pants try to avoid them. Although presumably these rooted tourists start walking again at some point, I have never actually witnessed this; unlike tourists, we commuters are physically incapable of stopping until we reach our destination, even if this means walking straight through the subway train and out the other side again.


Although extremely rare, you may even witness a tourist engaging in poultry waving, such as I observed today while waiting for my train home. A group of tourists in front of me were discussing an apparently missing member of their party, John, whose sneakers no doubt had unexpectedly gone into Off mode somewhere in the station. In contrast to many tourists in such a situation, they did not frantically look about for John. They did not call out for him in loud, concerned voices. One of the women simply raised her hand in the air and, for all the waiting commuters and tourists alike to see, waved a rubber chicken.


A rubber chicken that was wearing a bikini.


And in seconds, John had rejoined his party.


Several of us were impressed with the chicken idea, although we did not publicly say this to the tourists, lest they mistake this for approval of tourists in general. But privately, the sight did temporarily restore our good humor toward tourists.


Which will last until one stops dead in front of us again.