The DOGE Days of Summer

There's been a lot of talk about efficiency these days, but why does it have to stop with the gubmint? As the founding members of the Department of Cluster Efficiency (DOCE), we and our employee (a 21-year-old named Big DRBs) have taken over the RA headquarters and stayed up 23 hours a day for the last four months finding ways to save us all money on our annual assessments. Here's what we've found so far: 

Swimming pools. 15 of them is way too many, especially when we have all those lakes, just sitting there! Sure, there are some algae blooms and whatnot, but a tube of Neosporin is a heck of a lot cheaper than a pool pass. 

Sunrise Valley and Sunset Hills. Clear waste—why do we need two roads when one would do? Call it Midday Motorway and be done with it. 

Yard waste pickups. We have common areas for a reason, right? As an added bonus, dumping all our leaves into those otherwise underused spaces will deprive Reston's dreaded invasive plants of sunlight. Win-win. 

Color palettes. Why do we need all these wasteful colors like Sea Foam and Copper Taupe? Look at our neighbor to the east, Vienna, and just paint everything a nice uniform brown. 

McTacoHut. Clear inefficiency. We've already lost the Hut, resulting in 33% savings, but why do we need two drive-throughs when one could dispense both round meat discs and tubular meat sacs? 

Library. There's talk about building a new one, but who reads books these days? There are plenty of quality free newspapers and blogs out there. 

Electric car charging stations. We do need those, for reasons, and preferably near Terraset Elementary, which bears an uncanny resemblance to our fancy new stainless steel pickup truck. 

Tot lots. Why coddle the youngest Restonians? Just give them some rocks and sticks and let them play in the parking lots. Again, Neosporin. 

Two golf courses. Don't worry, some out-of-towners are already hard at work on that one, the end.

This post was originally published in the Reston Letter.