Protest Monday

Sometimes people like to come to the building I work at and hold "sit-ins" or other forms of protest over issues they care about.

Today a large group of people decided to hold a "sit-in" in the Rotunda...right next to my office.

I don't know if you've ever been in a Rotunda of a building, but they tend to have the personality trait of echoing a lot. It's kind of an annoying characteristic, but sometimes it's cool.

Like a few weeks ago - the echo was really cool when a choir was singing in the Rotunda. It sounded like the choir was 10 times bigger and more powerful than it actually was. And it was sounded beautiful. So I didn't mind those people using the Rotunda.

I hope you've also caught on to the fact that I like the word "Rotunda." Ro-TUN-da!

Of course, I like saying Rotunda less when the noises it echoes are obnoxious cheering and yelling. Not just because it makes the yelling 10 times louder, but because it also garbles the yelling, so whatever is being yelled is even more obnoxious. So I couldn't tell you what they were protesting exactly. It had something to do with disabled people (most of them were in wheelchairs), but I have no idea what the actual problem was. Which is just as well, I suppose.

I got that all day. With a break for lunch and a few times for what I assumed were smoke breaks - at least, the women's bathroom would say that a large number of women spent a good amount of time smoking and then using the facilities. It reminded me of a bowling alley every time I walked in. You know how some people smell cigars and think of their grandpa because he always smoked a cigar, or smell campfire and think of home because they grew up camping? I smell stale smoke and (after wrinkling my nose in disgust) think of going bowling in Wisconsin, where smoking was either completely permitted, or permitted in one side of the alley, which permeates to the entire place. It didn't make me smile or nostalgic though - it just bummed me out that I had to endure the smell without throwing down strikes or spares with the family while the turkey cooked on Thanksgiving. To be specific.

But moving on.

This was my first real experience with a big group of protesters in our building, so co-worker Josh had a nice time telling me about all the past experiences the Hill has had with this particular group and how they can get nasty and how the police will eventually start arresting them. The police had come and surrounded the group on the main floor, and around the balcony on the floor above, so they were keeping a close eye on the rambunctiousness.

So I kept waiting for it to end, with the police dragging these people out.

Didn't happen.

They were there all day.

Shouting. And Protesting. And taking up all the Rotunda and some of the hallway space people need to use sometimes to get places. And smelling up the bathroom with stale smoke smells. And shouting some more.

Finally, when I left at 6:30 this evening, I saw the Capitol Police starting to scatter people and "help" them leave the building. It was pretty un-exciting in their clearing out - it definitely didn't match the intensity of the sounds I was hearing, which was slightly disappointing. I was looking for a big scene, with people being dragged out, kicking and screaming, grabbing on to pillars, yelling things like, "Help, I'm being oppressed!" or something else Monty Python-ish. Alas, I was disappointed in the civility of it.

As I left the building and jumped on the metro, I checked my blackberry quickly - I had a new email from the Capitol Police, informing me of a demonstration disturbance in the Rotunda causing the doors to be closed temporarily.

My first thought? Shoot, if it took this long for that to be considered a distubance, what was I listening to all day?