DC Office Congressman Adam Schiff

I would never know how the hell I would access a Congressman’s office without the guide of an insider. Ethan interned for Schiff through the Pinetta Institute, so we went to visit his friends who were working in the office.
Yeah yeah, I know, it’s public space and all, but dude, we had to go into a side entrance, then go through the detectors, then go through elevators, climb marble stairs, look at the directories and then, we found the congresspeople’s offices. I have never climbed so many marble staircases in my life, and I grew up around museums.
We had to walk through long dark hallways with high ceilings and look for the California Rep Schiff plaque. I read all the plaques of Representatives, mounted on the wall next to the door. Some had big one foot shiny brass name plaques, some were just plain ol’ corporate paper signs, maybe those were the new representatives.
The doors of the different states were flanked by upright flags from their state. It looked like every doorway was the state line. I liked that Texas had a huge seal of Texas plastered on his door in red. I love Texas pride.
I wanted to see if I could get a hint from the décor what state it was that they represented. Would the Florida representative office smell like oranges?
It was like going on a cross-​country road trip, or taking that little canal boat ride in Disneyland, you know, that «Small World» ride where you can see the people from all over the world and the country in one amusement park ride. I looked at the offices of North Carolina, West Virginia, Alaska. Did the Alaska representative keep their office extra hot or extra cold? Would they have lots of oil lobbyists milling in the office?
I noted the location of the Illinois representatives, did they get a nicer office now that Obama was in power? I noticed if some offices had nicer paint, solid wood trim, plush carpets, thick curtains and some had blah flourescent lighting.
Some offices were big, some small, some very polished with brass fixtures and plaques and solid wood furniture and lamps and Oriental rugs, and some were pretty raw offices, unpainted with a bunch of boxes and cubicles visible from the hallway, those must be the new Representatives.
We found Adam Schiff’s office, I was told he was moved to a nicer office. He had nice couches and lamps, framed pictures and documents. Very tidy neat space. It was a pretty big office, Schiff covers a big district. We talked to lots of really interesting people in the office and then… Schiff himself!
Our parents live in California, but not in his district, but he was really nice to us anyway. We were invited into his office and sat in big cushy couches. I looked at his big desk flanked by flags and he had big windows overlooking D.C.
He was very friendly and we chatted for a while. I guess that gift of socializing is what you need in order to be a politician. He was very easy to talk to. We took a picture with him. I was so thrilled, it was like going to Disneyland, they gave us gallery passes to the capitol that we didn’t use but were very pretty, (see US. Capitol review)
Afterwards we went to the gift shop. Ethan still had his old government employee ID so he was allowed to buy office supplies with official government seals on them. He bought me a photo folder that said, «House of Representatives» then we walked downstairs and crossed through the buildings through the underground tunnels, which was amazing fun. We passed by a bunch of congresspeople in the elevator who were very chipper and friendly. You can tell they are congressmen because they wear that circle pin.
Ethan no longer interns so we couldn’t take the Disneyland tram, that’s for employees only. Dang.