It began on the X2...but it ended on the roof.

Oh what a night. So, coming home from another type-A DC activity, I was catching up on extremely important lawyer joke emails and facebook posts on my iPhone, aka My Baby/additional appendage, whichever metaphor resonates with you the most. When out of nowhere, this young guy grabs it. He tries to rip it out of my hand and take off, jumping off the bus just as the doors are closing (increasingly typical MO, see Unsuck DC Metro's excellent coverage here). I held on to it and started swearing at him (a troubling first reaction for a double pastor's kid, but hey, I was in the moment), so he just booked it.

But no, there's more. The night got even better. A knock on our door around 11:00 turns out to be a couple of our neighbors with some news and a request: one of their kittens was stuck on our roof, and could they get up there to bring him down? This led to me and a newly introduced neighbor (though not the cat owner, she was sensibly observing from below) spending the better part of an hour on our porch roof trying to coax down a kitten from our house roof. This involved, but was not limited to: 3 laundry baskets, 2 ladders, a cat toy, a felt and wire flower, climbing in and out of my window multiple times, almost dying when one of said ladders collapsed underneath me, and getting stared/yelled at by all our non-white neighbors down below, one of whom was being a jackass til he found out the cat we were trying to rescue wasn't ours nor our white neighbor's, but our black neighbor's. All the while my roommates and I are in our pajamas. Because we're classy like that.

But no, there's more. The night got even better (this time not in an ironic way). Still wired after getting all the people and cat-catching equipment through my window and off my porch roof, I get on gchat to recount this to one of my best friends Hilary:
me: then I just spent an hour getting a kitten off my roof

Hilary: wow

me: me, my two white roommates, and our one white neighbor up in the house with a bunch of black neighbors staring at us from the street

Hilary: laughing at your kitten retrieval attempts?

me: laughing/making fun of us. one was kinda being a jerk til he found out the cat belonged to one of our black neighbors

Hilary: look at you: 4 white chicks and a cat, bridging the racial divide. Well done! sounds like something that would happen to Sam and Josh somehow. Now I'm imagining the scene: [What follows is Hilary's spontaneously hilarious re-imagining of this scene, only in the show "The West Wing". It loses something if you haven't seen the show, but props to Hil's latent screenwriting abilities.]

Josh: Could you just reach...seriously, Sam, just reach across the roof and
grab its...
Donna: Josh? What are you doing up there?
Josh: Drafting the State of the Union, Donna, what does it look like we're
doing?
Donna: Risking a broken neck?

Sam: Donna, we need a laundry basket.
Josh: Yeah. We'll just scoop the little thing up and put it through a spin
cycle. That'll show it.

Donna: Josh! Don't go near the cat. You're not a cat person! [pause] Okay, I
have an idea. I have a friend who knows all about this. His name's Joe, and

he could really use the work...
Josh: Donna! No, just get the...

Charlie (approaching the house on foot): Uh, guys? The cat jumped down onto

the porch and ran down the street about ten minutes ago.
Josh: OK. OK...no one tell the President
about this.

(The next day, in the hallway.)

CJ: So, I heard something about a performance of "Cat on a Hot Tin
Roof" last night. Anything you'd like to share with the class, Joshua?

(Later that day, in Leo's office, before a meeting.)
Leo: You spent half an hour chasing a cat around a roof? This is what passes
for the best and the brightest around here?
Josh: Leo, this wasn't our fault!
Leo: Right.
Josh: That cat was crazy!
Sam: It was clearly a Republican cat.
Josh: Yes. Yes, that it was.
Margaret (poking her head in): My cat runs out of the room and scratches at
the curtains when she sees the Speaker of the House on TV.
Leo: We need to get that cat elected!
Josh: It'd be smarter than most of the incumbents.