Random Districtions #3

Bar Safety Tips: Keep yourself clothed and dignified at all times

Sometime in the early years of this millennium the male “douche” was invented. Oh sure douches are as old as history itself (who could forget the famous bible story Jonah and the Whale and the Anal Douche), but I am not talking about the hygienic product; Rather I am talking about the American male archetype of the douche. Otherwise known as the bro, the dude, or John Mayer, a douche tends to be an upper middle class white male who seeks to affirm their status in society by celebrating their own dominance and, for lack of a better word, douchebaggery. While every corner of the United States, from the Lower East Side to all of Southern California, has their own version of the douche (“this douche is your douche, this douche my douche…”), there is something about douches at the center of American governmental power that makes the Washingtonian subspecies particularly obnoxious and grotesque.

Washington D.C douches are easy to spot: during the week the ones my age all are employed and make lots of money, but it’s never anywhere that anyone would want to work nor does their job require genuine qualitative analysis. During the weekends their blue and white striped oxford wearing packs (think urban zebra herds) move between DuPont Circle and Georgetown, occasionally straying into Adams Morgan to get in bar fights and use the N-word in public. Finally, on weeknights, these douches retreat to their dark wood covered apartments to watch SportCenter and think about how great it is to be a white heterosexual wealthy male, all the while protected from D.C’s others by the moats that are Rock Creek and the Potomac River.

So why am I filled with more anger than usual about this subject? Well this weekend I had quite a little run-in with some Grade A douches. It’s important to understand that the douche's larval stage begins in their university’s frat houses, and this past Saturday I went out to the DuPont Circle area to meet up with a visiting friend to experience her sorority and frat friends from college. The bar was that kind of insanely crowded where you contemplate the benefits of learning how to pick pocket, and was thus somewhat overheated. While it was steamy, what her frat douche friends did to deal with the heat was simply appalling.

Sometime between “Party in the U.S.A” and “Lean Back”, two of the douches looked longingly into each other’s eyes, perhaps recalling a long ago tryst, and seemed to telepathically tell each other that the time to express there full douchebaggery was nigh. Like a peacock unfurling its big gay tail, THESE DOUCHES PROCEDED TO TAKE OFF THEIR SHIRTS IN THE BAR, and continue grinding with drunk Jewish girls as if it was a normal acceptable thing to do. Shirtless drinking is okay on spring break (once the rohypnol kicks in), but on a cold night in D.C. As aras I can tell, there are only two reasons to remove your shirt in an establishment that sells alcohol: either you’re a stripper or your shirt was doused in flaming napalm. Unless they were somehow pole dancing with the Viet Cong, removing shirts in a bar is unacceptably douchebaggy.

So please, for the children’s sake, let’s hope for a hard winter and maybe, just maybe, these shirtless douchebags will either learn their lesson and become clothed douches or turn into beeeeeeautiful ice sculptures.