The Spy Who Loved Me

We decide to make our way to the Spy Museum by way of the Hirshhorn sculpture garden.

The Hirshhorn is a magical place of imagination gone wild in spectacular size and form. The 3-D house. The silver tree. The giant rolling eraser. Too cool for words. It is sprawling and inviting and before you know it, by making your way from one fabulous piece to the next, you've traveled 3 or four blocks toward your destination.

And the Spy Museum is one of our favorites. Even if it is a king's ransom to go in, and double that to be a double agent. A double agent, if you've never been, is the name given to patrons who participate in a spy mission, and then tour the museum. The spy mission requires a little imagination, but it is really fun to get lost in figuring out who has the gizmo that detonates the bomb made from whatever it is the Person of Interest is smuggling.

And in the museum, before you enter, you memorize an identity, and throughout your walking tour of the intelligence community's fascinating history, inclusive of dart-shooting umbrellas and exploding cigarette cases, you are regularly quizzed to see if you'd blow your cover if confronted. I was nearly perfect except I forgot what I was supposed to be doing at the Swiss Fusion Lab on vacation.

We found a familiar Irish Pub in Chinatown (what?) where we'd eaten the prior summer. Kid food, grown up food, and good beer. We decided that rather than trying to squeeze in any more sightseeing, after an early dinner, we'd take a cab to the hotel, change and promptly head to the pool for a dip.

This time, the lifeguard clearly had no interest in guarding anyone's life. (It's your life, you watch it!) Or listening to the sounds of children playing. (How dare they?) And after taking some floating devices from some joyfully shrieking children, sat with his back to the (defunct) lounge with a first aid kit on his lap, pretending to be alert to any trouble in the water.

I could not see his eyes for the RayBan's, and could not position myself behind him to observe with my own eyes, but could identify with ease the distinct hand motions he was making. They were those of a teenager engaged in texting. This little punk was not watching the kids frolic in the pool, or the senior citizen doing laps in his Speedo, or the teenagers going off the diving board. He was making plans for the evening!

Incensed, I slapped into the hotel in my flipflops and ring-a-ding-dinged the little desk bell. (I thought they only did this in the movies. It was fun!) A very nice woman came out and I asked when the GM would be available. When I learned that he keeps bankers hours, I told her I would compose a complaint for him, but of immediate and grave concern was the slacker guarding the pool. I told her that of all the complaints, and there were quite a few, this was the most serious, and I would insist that that kid get fired. I would volunteer to do it myself!

She stood blinking like I was a lunatic. I probably looked like one. But I'd rather look like a nut than sit idly by while a child's life is at risk. Apparently Slacker doesn't share my concern.

Eventually, she thanked me for my concern. She could not wait for me to be gone from her presence.

But I waited. I waited in the lobby to see what would happen. And only when a man in a blue suit exited his office and headed in the direction of the pool did I press the elevator button and leave it in his hopefully, capable hands. I hope Slacker's plans for the evening were a little less fun because he'd have to tell his friends he was fired.