horse shit

The Mall, by which I mean the national Mall, not one of the malls that call themselves "the Mall," can be a lovely place, in spite of some of the flak it's gotten lately. I love riding through it in the morning, before it's infested with horse shit. By which I mean actual horse shit, as well as the kind where tourists chant, "in the name of Jesus I declare this ankle healed" in front of the Washington Monument. Although I'm not sure that either form of horse shit is more unpleasant than the sea of ill-fitting tube tops. But I digress. More puzzling to me than why anyone would take it upon herself to declare an ankle healed in the name of Jesus or squeeze herself into a crime of fashion is why these people sprawl the width of the pavement, which by the way is an official bike path, when bikes go by all day. And yet, they go on as if their eyes are closed. WTF??