Sad and sadder: Photos of the shutdown

No matter what your political affiliation, just about everybody can agree that the government shutdown is a huge bummer.

No picture better captures that sad trombone feeling than this shot, recently posted to Reddit and shared on Twitter by Time magazine's Alex Fitzpatrick.

While it's hard to top an adorable toddler dressed as a bear staring forlornly through the gates of a closed zoo (Won't somebody think of the children?!), others have tried. On Twitter, the "shutdownbeard" hashtag has taken off. Participants post selfies showing off how long their beards get during the shutdown. Here's hoping things will come to a resolution before anybody wins the Rutherford B. Hayes award.

But wait -- we're not through making you cry. Gizmodo recently posted a video of a 5-year-old weeping his eyes out because NASA's website had been shut down (the video was later removed).

And the hits keep on coming. Here's a photo posted to Twitter earlier this week by photographer Matt Dunn. One helpless shrug is worth a thousand words.

Another picture, this time of security gesturing for people to get away from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

Finally, here's a photo of a man, later identified as Chris Cox, working on beautifying the lawn around the Lincoln Memorial on his own time and with his own mower.