The scene, Washington, D.C., 2009, our hero, Andrew Heaton, has returned from his master's degree.

Unable to find anything approaching suit and tie work on a standard career track, he has stumbled

into a gig as a Segway tour guide. He looks very cool as a Segway tour guide. You might think he looks like a total dork

riding a Segway wearing his bicycle helmet, but you are wrong. He looks like Caesar standing atop a

chariot addressing his troops while wearing a bicycle helmet. One day, as Heaton is delivering his charges back to the store,

at the end of an excellent and very entertaining tour ranging from the White House to the National Mall to Congress,

Heaton is pulled over by police officers, and he grows worried.

Did he violate some traffic law? Did one of the people on his tour do something?

The police officer approaches Heaton, who again looks reminiscent of Julius Caesar standing atop of a chariot

and asks to see his tour guide license. Heaton is baffled. What tour guide license? He asks, why would I need a

license to be a tour guide? The cop is very polite and explains in Washington, D.C. you are

required to have a license to give professional tours. I'm going to let you wrap this tour up. You can finish

today's tour. But if I see you giving a tour again illegally without a license, we will have to take

you into the precinct and find you. And then Heaton asked some follow-up questions, and he says, yes,

if you do it multiple times, we'll arrest you. Heaton, who is much younger at this time,

doesn't yet have to wake up in the middle of the night to pee. Heaton is more naive and innocent

than he is now. He assumes that the city of Washington has instituted a licensing regime

for tour guides as a matter of public safety.

That makes sense.

He is, after all, spiriting adults and high school students on borrowed,

novel vehicles which look cool through busy intersections and roads and sidewalks.

So we understand that civic leaders might want to ensure people in his position know basic traffic laws, as well as some emergency coordination, such as who to call in the event of an accident or what to do if somebody, God forbid, is hit by a car.

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