Have a nice trip

It has taken four years, but I have done it. I figured out a way to survive the legislature a.k.a. 45 days of bad parking, incessant annoyance and mind-boggling condescension. The session can sometimes be intimidating as it is annoying. You have legislators hating you, blue coats and green coats threatening to have you arrested and a thousand meetings to attend. What's more there is ample supply of the pompous, the snooty, the self-important and entitlement complexes abound. But Thursday, Feb. 7, at around 11:35 p.m. I discovered a way to take the edge off. On the second floor of the capitol on the north side there is a stairwell next to the Senate chamber and is the main one that is used to get from the galleries to the Senate and House floors. (The stairs have a thick lip on them and an awkward landing) I was waiting for a senator to come meet me and was mingling near the stairwell. In the 10 minutes I was there I saw not two, not three, but four people trip, fall or stumble both going up or coming down. There was an annoying lobbyist who took a pretty large fall, an intern with stilettos who fell going up and actually drop some papers, a UHP trooper who let out an expletive and a Trib reporter. It was a fantastic spectacle, a real must see. It was like watching NASCAR...you know if you just hold out a little longer there is going to be a crash...Or like watching gymnastics...don't lie to yourself. You think that last thing you want to see is some leotard junky clothesline themselves on the parallel bars or one of the guys bag themselves on the pommel horse, but deep down that is what keeps you tuned in. Those stairs are a living reminder that we are indeed all just people walking around and regardless of rank or title, based on simple statistics there is a good chance you are going to biff it on those stairs at one point or another. I plan on watching daily...so don't judge. Join in. Before it is all said and done I am hoping to see something like this....