#3 The West Wing

When performing menial tasks a chimp with Down's Syndrome could execute, for an annual salary that rings in at about half of what they paid yearly for their Ivy League or second-tier undergraduate education, it's helpful for Hill Person to escape from time to time into a dramatization of what their career could be (but won't) some day.

The hit television series "The West Wing" provides plenty of wet dream fodder for the downtrodden, indentured servitude-working staff assistant Hill Person, and helps him believe that if he just hangs out in the right bars and hands out business cards to the right people, he too can someday wear designer suits that no federal worker could ever possibly afford, while quickly rattling off impressive policy mumbo-jumbo, in the grand tradition of Josh Lyman, Sam Seaborne, and that ugly surely Jewish guy who may or may not have been on the verge of suicide for the entire series.

One of the most badass things about West Wing is the cool insider-DC knowledge that comes with watching an episode. Hill People like to tell their friends who live in other cities when their favorite restaurant or bar is mentioned on the show ("omigod I hang out at Hawk & Dove alll the time! And whenever my parents come to town, we eat at Old Ebbit!") or when the show's producers take creative license that doesn't reflect the geographical reality of Washington ("the National Cathedral is soooo not on the way to the State Department. That is so unrealistic. Ugh.")

The subtle crossovers between fiction and real life also excite Hill People. The final season of the show features a young, relatively inexperienced and (OMG) Hispanic congressman taking on an affable, yet haggard and fatally flawed Republican senator. Holy crap that's totally Obama vs. McCain!!! And Hill People can relate to this. They are on the front lines of history in this presidential election. Because if they weren't in Washington giving tours of the Capitol, nobody could go to Pennsylvania to campaign for Hillary or accompany McCain on Spring Break Iraq '08. Democracy would crumble.

The availability of the show on DVD has made frequent repeat watching a possibility for Hill People. However, be wary of prominently displaying your DVD collection when inviting one into your home. Absent of a part-time job or bankrolling parents, Hill People can't afford their own television box sets, and will be eager to "borrow" yours upon seeing it.