Looking at internships in the nation's capital? You might have D.C. connections hooking you up with a cushy position, but if you don't, the alternative is easy. Go to your Career Center, hit up jobtrak.com, or call your Congressperson's office for a position. These resources should be enough to weasel your way into something good.

It's that simple. Internships are a dime a dozen in the District. But buyer beware: The D.C. internship isn't about résumé building or experience or pay. It's all about improvisation, making the best out of a ramshackle good time. Working for your congressman is nice-y and all, but regular interns make no money. They rarely see their hotshot bosses. One Ted Kennedy intern I talked to said she never saw her beached Senator all summer. Other interns forge signatures for their esteemed bosses. Sounds like working for your dad. You know, the one you never see. Who makes you forge his signature. Who pays you nothing. It's sorta like that. But I digress. If this is how it works, why work here at all? Here's one reason I discovered:

Yep, that's me and Marion. Need I say more?

The people you work with are chill, too; they're your age and they usually know how to have a good time. Well, most people, at least. Every office has that one guy. You know, the one who stays late, asks too many questions and plots daily to make you look bad. Group meetings with him are unbearable. He manages to hog the bosses' attention with superfluous blow-speak, stressing the details in HR 263 [something about the haggis industry] or asking about the development of a geopolitical methodology to help combat socioeconomic stratification.

Want to silence this guy? After another one of his fawning soliloquies, recoil in disbelief. Irrelevant of the topic, ask: "So you're saying you support slavery?" That ought to shut him up. Interns in this town don't take their jobs lightly, though. The office may rally together at or out of work, but if you're looking to slack off with your co-workers, forget about it. You're side by side with some of the most ambitious talent in the country, and a surprising number of these people make it to work by 8 a.m.

It's all worth it when you consider the celebrity experience. Washington is now, more than ever, about it's people. If you want to get a taste of the greatest show in the world, walk into a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. Buddies Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Orrin Hatch and their miraculously virile sidekick Strom Thurmond join hands in one of the most bizarre spectacles you'll ever catch. These guys B.S. their way through meetings like kids who haven't done the reading. They don't know a thing. And yet you admire their perseverance, their ability to overcome election after election, their ideological stands, their geopolitical methodology or something like that. I couldn't begin to tell you what they've done. Didn't Thurmond father a kid at 88?

Getting an internship is only the half of it, though. You've got to find a place to live. Housing is best in Georgetown or it's northern neighbor, Burleith. Here you won't be a stranger in a strange land; lots of undergrads shack and drink up in these historic little burghs.

You might expect D.C. to be some sort of international melting pot, the cultural crossroads between North and South, East and West. Forget it. This city has about as much flava as Fajita Night at Applebee's. The only true "international" types in this city work in the service industry. Georgetown marches in line to the homogenous beat; bars are classified by sketch factor, not culture, and nearby shops ring familiar: Gap, Banana Republic, J.Crew. The District isn't the most cosmopolitan place in the world. But for those interns who miss their suburban town, Georgetown's safe haven feels like home, even though your hamlet probably doesn't have a bang-up selection of bars.

And you will go to these bars, too, swilling suds and bumping greased elbows with your peers. Drinking is the social hub of your D.C. internship, even eclipsing your day job in terms of rigor, ribaldry and rivalry. Alcohol can bring out the worst kind of hyper-competitive impulses in interns. Some Yale whitebread will try to convince you that New Haven is "dope," while you put the ersatz moves on some Wellesley girl who asks you your name: "It's Coco Chanel," you tell her. "You can call me Ernie."

Then there's the Dartmouth guy next to you at the bar, trying to impress you with the fact that he's an analyst for the IRS. After his fifth drink he''s slumped over the same bar, trying to impress you with the fact that he once drank his own urine "It was surreal, man." He might do it again tonight. "Wanna stop by?"

No thanks.

After the bars, you might go to a house party: the locus of intern socializing. Conversation compares to that of bar-talk, except the fact that Mr. Dartmouth is now passed out on the couch, save for moments of clarity where he patches together his memory of writing the pilot for "Jake and the Fatman." Most other interns understand the whole awkward conversation dance, too. Some of the best moments are spent around the water cooler or the keg, getting wistful over catching Trent Lott's eye or ditching the office early for nine holes and a brew. But when these impromptu conversations dismiss, the focus returns to nebulous banter or shameless plugging. Everybody shares the same work experience, but they have different homes and schools and rallying points. It's hard to break through.

But no matter...it's all good!You'll find the people you work with, some gal you recognize from high school or a guy from your crew at school. And you'll all sit around, share a moment or two and talk about that virile Strom Thurmond.

The president and charter member of the "Jake and the Fatman" Fan Club, Jeff DeMartino had been searching for the perfect toilet-paper music box for years. Thank you, Harriet Carter Catalog.