This morning, my commitment to law and order was tested. Because blocking the Four Mile Run bike trail this morning at approximately 9:20 a.m. was a brown Sheriff’s Office van, within which a deputy or deputies (sorry, Erik, my glasses were fogged up) were “supervising” three poor wretches in orange cleaning up in sub-freezing temps.

Now, I don’t have a problem with forcing Arlington County Detention Facility inmates to pick up trash in the cold. Anyone who manages to screw up so soundly in such a genteel place as Arlington ought to spend a few hours trimming weeds and picking up cans under those bridges so they can revisit their choices! In fact, as work details go, that one may not be too bad, since the area is so frequently picked over by the incarcerated.

But I gotta say it’s the height of lameness for the public servants charged with supervising them to do so from the comfort of a heated van, and even lamer that they blocked the entire freaking no-motorized-vehicles-allowed path doing so. I had to wait for the van to inch forward painfully slowly and then squeeze between its sidewalls and the fence by the run to get through. Hey, Arlington County Sheriff’s Office! I didn’t commit any crimes! Why must you punish me?