Still Life with Robin: Pranks for the Thought

James McNellis via Creative Commons

by Peggy Robin

If you wait long enough, the craziest parodies can come true….

That’s the lesson of our annual April Fool’s jokes. In 2015 the crazy idea was an H2O bar – a bar that sells only high-end bottled water – and we didn’t need to wait long at all before we were sent reports of actual places doing exactly what we were making fun of. Always ahead of the curve, trendy Los Angeles already had a place that offered up over 40 different varieties, served by water sommeliers (see: https://lat.ms/2Owxzcv for the story). But it wasn’t just a Coolifornia thing – we later learned there was one opening up in the great American heartland – this one in Minneapolis: http://bit.ly/2qnNnG6. And then in July of this year, the satire turned into a site right here in DC, when a water bar -- creatively named “Water Bar”  -- set up shop in Columbia Heights (2822 Georgia Ave NW) . Our April Fool had come back to the source! (DCist had the story: http://bit.ly/33W11yT.

And now it’s happening again! Another April Fool has bubbled up as a Serious Thing. This time it’s the naming rights to Metro stations – the subject of our 2018 April Fool’s prank. You can read all about it here: http://bit.ly/33VXUa6. Just imagine coming out of the Red Line in our neighborhood to see you’re at Target-Cleveland Park. And then when you go downtown and come up the escalator at what used to be Federal Triangle, now it’s The Trump International Make Metro Great Again Station. A year or two later, after Amazon opens their big, new HQII in Northern Virginia, the Station Formerly Known As Crystal City will become Amazon National Landing. Well, that’s the part that wasn’t in the parody piece – and it’s what could very well become reality, according to an article that appeared in the Washingtonian online earlier this week: See http://bit.ly/32SiRS9 .  

As Dave Barry used to say, whenever he found a news article that was nuttier than anything he could come up with on his own, “I am NOT making this up!”

Of course, it hasn’t yet come to pass, and maybe, if enough people treat it as a joke, the Metro Board will realize that it is one. Maybe not quite so funny, if it happens In Real Life. Or perhaps they will stop to consider the trenchant question posed by the Washingtonian: “What could go wrong?”

Read the article for some possible answers: http://bit.ly/32SiRS9 .

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Still Life with Robin is published on the Cleveland Park Listserv and on All Life Is Local on Saturdays.