What caused the brief and pretty boring evacuation of the Capitol Visitor Center at 11:25 a.m.? Did the vanilla-chai teabags reach a Singularity? No it was a fire alarm everybody calm the fuck down. A mysterious staffer, “Em-bot,” sent us the entire drama, as represented in Capitol Police emails. It is exciting, if you are excited by, say, Twitter.
From: US Capitol Police [mailto:uscp59386@alert.house.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:25 AM
To: All House Staff
Subject: Evacuation of the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC).
Importance: HighThis is a message from the U.S. Capitol Police
1. An evacuation has been ordered for the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC).
2. Remain calm and move in a safe manner to the exits.
3. If nearby, grab Go-Kits and personal belongings on the way out.
4. Close doors behind you, but do not lock. Avoid using elevators.
5. Proceed home. Or, if your office has an alternate off-campus meeting
place,
proceed to that alternate site if directed by your management.
6. Once at home, you can call 1-888-446-4366 or 202-226-6661 for recorded information.
7. If you are not in the (designated HOBs), please stay clear of the building.Please do not respond to this e-mail. This mailbox is unattended. End of message.
Sent on: 04/08 11:25—–Original Message—–
From: US Capitol Police [mailto:uscp59391@alert.house.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:37 AM
To: All House Staff
Subject: Follow-up to the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) Situation – All Clear
Importance: HighThis is a message from the U.S. Capitol Police
1. The Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) situation has been resolved.
2. You may now return to your offices.
3. Thank you for your cooperation during this incident.Please do not respond to this e-mail. This mailbox is unattended. End of message.
Sent on: 04/08 11:36
=
We noticed, by the way, that Capitol staffers’ usenet group, “The Capitolist,” has gone offline. The owner quit paying the bills! Typical government, destroying our country, etc. In past years, on the rare occasion when some “breaking news” was happening at the Capitol, we could turn to this dumb website to collect an easy children’s treasury of vapid capitool staffer responses to, say, the Senate being on fire. Or, the House being on fire. No more. Never forget.
{ 27 comments }
I got hard reading that. Riveting.
But what if you’re already home? Do you go back?
So they email you that the building is under vanilla chai siege and tell you to go home, then they email you to go back to work 10 minutes later? WTF.
Wait. They tell everyone to go home and then 11 minutes later they say “Psyche!”
LAME.
Seriously, can we all just go into a bunker for the rest of the horrible month of April? I’m tired of this shit.
[re=283805]Urbanachiever[/re]: I’d be halfway to the border in a stolen car…
Oh man I was hoping the crazies went from tea bags to fire bombs, for laffs.
Does the Visitors’ Center still smell like visitors?
[re=283809]NoWireHangers[/re]: Exactly!
And by “already home,” I of course mean the nearby bar where you meet your co-workers, order bloody marys, and talk about how awesome it was that you got sent away from work for the rest of the day. How, pray tell, do you come back from that?
[re=283813]Urbanachiever[/re]: Well, you do have the sick thought of tea-bag stuffed constituent mail piling up. “Next round is on me.”
In the event of a real fire or terrorist attack, little Timmy, who got separated from his tour group and has no idea what a Blackberry or iPhone does, will have burned to death and or contracted a serious case of anthrax by now. But thank God for emails, everyone else is safe.
This leave unanswered the burning question: What is in those “Go Kits”? Wasn’t “Go Kits” a sixties television program in which all the characters were played by marionettes? And weren’t the marionettes a dance troupe that worked with a former crack-smoking mayor of DC?
So what’s in the GoKits? Is there tea?
[re=283821]2druk2phluq[/re]: Clearly, if you can’t afford handheld wireless internet technology you deserve to die.
I guess we’ve all learned an important lesson here: if you work in the Capitol and are evacuated, you have about eleven minutes to get to a Metro station or someplace else you can claim to have no reception or else you have to get back to work.
[re=283805]Urbanachiever[/re]: With that traffic? Oh I hope they stayed home.
Go Kits: 1 bourbon, 1 scotch, 1 beer.
From: US Capitol Police [mailto:uscp59391@alert.house.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 11:37 AM
To: All House Staff
Subject: Follow-up to follow-up to the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) Situation – All Clear
Importance: High
This is a message from the U.S. Capitol Police
1. We have enough tea.
2. Please send chocolate.
Please do not respond to this e-mail. This mailbox is unattended. End of message.
This was about almost as hilariously anticlimactic as your ‘The Corner’ call for Norm Coleman to give up the fight. I need to just start getting ready for something short and dumb as soon as I read words like ‘melodrama’ and ‘impassioned’.
Well, now we know where Obama is sneaking off to get a smoke.
[re=283853]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: Obviously, the attempt to get him to use those stupid electric ciggy-shaped nicotine vaporizers failed.
[re=283813]Urbanachiever[/re]: I faced a choice like that after 4 hours of Saint Paddy’s Day partying.
I decided it would be better to simply proceed home rather than show up at work drunk as a skunk.
~
Typically, I find Fire Alarms are very loud, are sometimes accompanied by blinking lights and big red fire engines. Especially in brand new high-cost government buildings.
Please tell me they spent an extra $100m of ‘stimulus’ on a silent (not to alert the terrorists) unattended email fire alarm system.
My cousin is a Capitol Hill police officer assigned to the Capitol Visitors Center. My thoughts are with him during this difficult time.
[re=283940]Vartan84[/re]: If you think THIS is a difficult time, wait until that poor bastard is down there during July, when the hordes of 6th grade students who haven’t yet discovered the miracle that is anti-perspirant/deodorant and fat-assed hillbilly tourists descend on the CVC after trudging from the Washington Monument to the Capitol…the smells of summer in DC…
[re=283807]Squiggyfm[/re]: Yeah, I wouldn’t come back.
[re=283948]teh_heysoos[/re]: I love the smell of the CVC in the summer. It smells like…days-old underwear worn inside out with skid marks and wet dream stains on both sides. Or victory.
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