#12 Fro-yo

There comes a time in every Hill Person's day when work just starts to get to them. Somewhere between the incessant constituent phone calls, the unbearable meetings with borderline retarded representatives of interest groups that probably shouldn't have a voice in the federal governmet, and the constant background noise of interns talking about Baby Suri, the Hill Person starts to forget why they ever took this job in the first place. They start to despair that perhaps it is all in vain, that maybe the naysayers were right when they said an entry-level job on the Hill was about as glamorous as working at a Chinese massage parlor, and paid less too.

Then, they remember the best part of the day (besides their morning glimpse of the Senator on his way to the bathroom). The reason they are able to drag themselves out of bed in the morning, brave the red line crammed with hundreds of unpatriotic drones heading to their meaningless office jobs, and sit at a desk all day pretending to care about the concerns of constituents.

Fro-yo.

Not only is it delicious and questionably low-fat, but due to the tax-exempt status of items purchased on the Hill, it's cheap enough for the average Hill Person to afford on a daily basis, assuming they didn't splurge on an off-campus meal that afternoon. If you walk into either the Dirksen basement or the Rayburn cafeteria circa 2:30 PM on the average workday, you will see Hill People walking in pairs or groups, casually eating their Fro-Yo and subtly but forcefully trying to prove that they are more up to date on current events than their companion(s). Commons topics include the day's NYT editorials ("Maureen Dowd is, like, totally on Obama's balls"), upcoming votes ("Ugh, F this vote-a-rama! Homie is just going to veto it anyway!") and whether or not McCain is going to live until November 2008 ("Our death pool is up to, like, $300!!")

Another brilliantly useful aspect of the Fro-Yo break is that it allows young, socially awkward Hill People to go on pseudo-dates. Even less legitimate than the lunch date, the (heteronormative) Fro-Yo date usually transpires as follows.

9 AM - 2:30 PM: Male Hill Person nervously works up courage to ask attractive-for-DC female Hill Person to get Fro-Yo.

2:30 PM - 2:35 PM: Hill People walk down to cafeteria together, bitching about their day so far

2:35 PM - 2:40 PM: Hill People discuss flavors. Ugh, it's always double dutch chocolate and vanilla. Remember that awesome day they had peanut butter??? I almost had $2 worth!

2:40 PM - 2:45 PM: Male Hill Person graciously pays for female Hill Person's Fro-Yo (Nice work champ, you spent a whole $1.50 on a girl! You're definitely going to get some now!!) Hill People walk back to office discussing the day's news. Male Hill Person wonders where this relationship is going. Female Hill Person thinks about how she's going to have to spend an extra 30 minutes at Gold's Gym tonight.

2:45 PM - 6 PM: Both Hill People think about how glorious their next Fro-Yo break will be.

Maybe tomorrow they'll have peanut butter. Here's hoping!