Day 13-14: Congressional Child Care

Yesterday we rocked at the House of Representatives Child Care Center. Many thanks to Paige for setting it up. The teachers were into it as much as the kids. I think we saw some of our country's future leaders there.


On a tour of the Smithsonian Castle I lost my prescription glasses (right about when this photo was taken) which were eventually turned over to a security guard by another friendly tourist. Retrieving them from the Capitol Police lost and found was a great lesson in governmental obtuseness and glacial speed.

I asked a guard if they had been found and he asked me to describe the lost article. I did and he said, "I knew someone would come looking for them. I'll call downstairs and have someone come up."


After about ten minutes, a uniformed officer whom we'll call "Ms. Pokey McSlowerson" shuffled her way up to me and asked, "Are you the claimant?" Whatever, I'm the guy who lost my glasses.

"Can you describe them for me?" she asked suspiciously. Of course, and I did. "Come with me," she said.

Like she just couldn't shuffle those glasses up to me. Now, I had to shuffle with her down a long corridor in the "restricted" area, down a service elevator to the basement, to another uniformed guard behind a counter. She told the guy behind the counter that I was the "claimant" for the lost glasses. He then shuffled over to a bank of lockers and rummaged around for a couple of minutes until he produced something wrapped in a yellow piece of paper.

So, I got my glasses back, but not before I had to sign the six-copy form (that's a form in sextuplicate). The form documented the journey of the glasses from the good Samaritan (the "finder"), through the hands of three other Smithsonian officers, to me. Five people had to sign the form!! So, the Finder got the gold copy, I was gifted the yellow copy, white copy to the lost & found clerk, blue copy goes to supply officer, pink copy to GSA Representative, and green copy to Receiving Officer.

Finally, I was released back to my family.