The [Advisory Neighborhood] Commissioner

Jennifer Parker stood at the intersection of Eastern and Rhode Island Avenues NE, looking out at the weird curving wall of snow that sat on top of Mount Rainier, MD. On account of the slightly-above freezing temperature beneath the crust, Ward 5 UnderDC didn't get snowy--just wet. But Maryland didn't have the phenomenon of a giant dish or crust or whatever it was above, so it got snow. The warmth of Ward 5 and all the UnderDC parts adjacent to Maryland or Virginia allowed parts of those states to not be snowy when the horrendous late 21st century storms fell--but snowy parts fell within eyesight of UnderDC, and so from any spot on the border of DC, you could see what Jennifer Parker saw: no snow, and then an elliptical wall of the white stuff.

But the wall of snow wasn't the thing that worried Jennifer Parker. It was the burst water main on Rhode Island Ave that was spewing brownish liquid. This particular water main had been broken for a little over a week, and she had yet to see any crews from the DC Water and Sewer Authority even check out the main break. She had called DCWASA the previous Monday, but had heard--on the occasions that her electricity had flickered on and she could get news--that roughly every member of nearly every city service crew available, WASA included, was doing a massive repair job on the stilt above Ward 3 of UnderDC and all of the infrastructural disruptions caused by the swaying of the stilt.

But nuts to the stilt, Jenny thought: she wanted to cause a ruckus about this water main. It made her angry. Once again, the people on that freaking crust got their stuff repaired, all while, by all indications, nearly nothing else in the city was working. She wanted to convene the Ward 5A Advisory Neighborhood Commission, of which she was a Commissioner, to have a meeting at the water main and call some press, but the other commissioners had too many problems in their own parts of the ward. So here was Jenny, waiting for a City Paper reporter to come by and report on her water main problem. But lo--the reporter was almost a full hour late now. Traveling around the city was crazy these days, what with potholes the size of cars going unfixed for years, exploding water mains everywhere, and the whole problem of the swaying stilt. But still--Jenny had been waiting for a long time. She wanted somebody to care about the damn water main.

At about the forty-five minutes of waiting mark, a ten-year old boy came riding up on a bike. He was, along with Jenny, the only person on the street. She watched the boy from down Rhode Island until he rode up to her and stopped. "Hey ma'am," the boy said, putting on his brakes, and putting his feet on the road. "What're you doing standing by that nasty water?"

Jenny smiled. "Trying to make a point."

"What kinda point?"

"That somebody should care about us. What's your name?"

"Christopher Arnold Washington Junior."

"That's a fun name, Christopher Arnold Washington Junior."

Chris smiled. "It is!"

"How old are you, Chris?"

"Ten. How old are you?"

Jenny laughed. "Forty, honey. Where do you live?"

"Myrtle Avenue. Where do you live?"

"Oh, just a tiny bit away from here. Newton Street. I, uh." She considered whether she should tell the boy that she was from the ANC, and decided not to; what ten year-old cares about the ANC? she asked herself. "I'm just waiting for a news reporter to come write about this water main breaking."

"Oh, I don't know if any reporter's gonna come to that."

"And why not?"

"'cause it's boring!" the boy said, grinning widely, rolling his eyes and spinning his head around as he said "boring." Right as Chris said that, a heavily-bearded thirtysomething fellow, also riding a bike, came into view. Jenny peered at the moving figure, and then he was in front of her and little Chris.

"Oh hey," the man said, doing the same brake-and-stand thing that Chris did before. "I am so sorry. I'm the City Paper reporter. Name's Jeff." He held out his sweaty hand for Jenny to shake. "Got a heck of a water main problem here."

"Indeed," Jenny said, tentatively shaking Jeff's hand. "What took so long? You're, like, almost an hour late."

"I know, I know," Jeff said. "But, uh, there was something weird about Newt Gingrich running away from some conference and going into space. We don't usually cover that kinda stuff, but then there was this like crazy three-day riot maybe 'cause of that or something and a stand-off at the hotel where the conference was, and a bunch of young corn-fed conservative kids just blew up half of Woodley Park on top of the crust. Like just this morning. I had to go cover it, but I came over as quickly as I could."

Jenny stood, her eyebrows furrowed, arms crossed, processing what the young guy just said. "Hrm," she said. "So who's this Newt Gingrich and why's all that more important than my water main?"