The Culling of the Herd: Soapstone's St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Hey, remember that time people who lived near Soapstone Drive in South Reston were all up in arms about people parking campers and boats and work trucks and whatnot on the side of the road, but then they got distracted by the clearcutting of the forest right next to the road as part of the log plume construction stream restoration, and then everyone forgot about the cars because they were too busy staring at the desolate wasteland where the trees used to be?

Yeah, that was awesome. Well, thanks to eyewitness reporter "The Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston," who is rapidly becoming our favorite correspondent, we've learned that apparently they're starting to enforce some new parking regulations or something.

Exciting breaking news from Less Sought After South Reston (cue the Dragnet theme song). While driving up Soapstone at 9:30 p.m. on Valentine's Day to pick up Mrs. Peasant at Dulles Airport, what did I behold opposite our beloved high-end retail establishment -- I refer of course to that paragon of retailing excellence used as a benchmark by Nieman Marcus, i.e., our local 7-11 -- but a veritable army of police cars and wreckers, all with their blue lights flashing. (So many blue lights, in fact, that for a disoriented second or two I thought I had been teleported into a Kmart Blue Light Special). As you may know, my fellow South Reston peasants who live nearby believe their property values have been adversely impacted by the assortment of luxury vehicles such as graffiti-decorated box trucks, tradesmen's vans, and the like strewn in frozen perpetuity along both sides of Soapstone, in the process marring the scenic view of the newly-constructed WSSI Snakeden Memorial Parkway. It appeared that the local constabulary was responding at last to the neighborhood's fervent pleas to be rid of this mess so that we can all enjoy the five-star ambience of the 7-11 in the lux setting it so richly merits, without having to think we are living someplace called Lower 'Tater Creek Hollow or New Albania. Upon returning from the airport a half hour later, we saw a boat and a trailer being winched onto the wreckers to be taken to a Far, Far Better Place than the Bud Light-strewn environs of the 7-11.

It was truly a Lady Bird Johnson Beautify America moment. Or at the very least, a future 'ripped from the headlines' episode for "Law and Order."

There you have it. Of course, if they wanted to really be efficient, they could have just towed the cars to the gentle, sloping clearcut banks of Snakeden Creek and taken care of that whole eyesore once and for all.