This is a Gene Weingarten piece. Weingarten is an absurdly brilliant feature writer (this article won a Pulitzer, for whatever that's worth), and pretty funny in his humorous pieces too. I don't think this is his best work; my favorites of his are:

The Great Zucchini, about a birthday clown

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01...

Fatal Distraction, about parents locking their kids in cars --- this article is hard to take, and simply an awesome piece of writing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02...

The first time Weingarten got posted here I spent a couple hours tracking down as much of his writing as I could find, and ended up happy I did. Very much worth your time (or worth stuffing into your Instapaper account).