Three times this week, the person sitting next to me on the subway has started singing. I don’t mean singing along with music. I don’t mean singing for money. I mean singing a soft, creepy tune, as if to themselves, except not.
This isn’t okay. When I’m on the subway, reading my book, and a stranger launches into one of these ditties, I feel (a) distracted, (b) irritated, and then (c) afraid. I repeatedly jump to the conclusion that the person is haunted. Logical?
Last year was my first NYC Halloween, and I acted the part of newcomer: I went to the Halloween Parade. Big mistake. In an attempt to cross the street, I was pressed between one man’s butt and another’s stomach. The stomach pressed into my chest so forcefully that I thought I might pass out from lack of oxygen. Do not try this.
Since I was otherwise occupied, I didn’t answer my biggest question: what does trick-or-treating look like in New York City? Do the kids buzz random apartments to get into buildings? Do they just trick-or-treat in their own buildings? Or…is there no trick-or-treating?
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As told by my coworker and paraphrased by myself:
This morning, on the train, there was a commotion on my car. A woman in her 50s, well dressed, reading The Times, was falling all over herself. She was twitching; people had to stabilize her. They called doctors — apparently she was on all types of meds.
She was like, Listen — I have a friend waiting for me, just let me get off this train. The EMTs came and took her to the hospital.
Do you know where she was going on the train? To her private practice psychotherapy office.
On the subway, I peered down at a lucky, seated girl (my face was pressed against the wall). She had on a giant ring. I examined the giant ring. I admired it.
She noticed me staring at her hands and looked at them. Suddenly she was picking at the chipped polish on her fingernails. She looked distressed.
She saw me staring, figured I must be judging something, and took it as a cue to judge herself.
In my brain: “Sweet ring.” In her brain: “My nails look gross! Ugh, embarrassing. I definitely need to repaint those.”
“But be careful,” said a father, arm-in-arm with his elementary-school son. “Write what you want to write, not what she wants you to write.”
An adorable baby sat next to his mom on the bus. He was a happy baby! He smiled at the other passengers and made big O shapes with his mouth. Then he found a toy: his mother’s MetroCard, which he repeatedly took out of and slipped back into its thin plastic case.
Fitting the card into the case was a challenge. When the baby succeeded, he beamed and yelled “Yay!” This prompted the woman across the bus aisle to yell “Yay!” and clap her hands.
A few successes later, the entire front half of the bus was playing. Every time the card went into its home, everyone clapped and hoorayed. I was laughing aloud. Babies!
Didn’t I say bus people were nicer?
A friend of mine just got an enormous shoe rack in the mail. The thing — at least 30 pounds in its unwieldy box — took 20 minutes to move from her living room to her bedroom. She spent four hours constructing it. She spent 10 minutes looking for six pieces the company didn’t include. She spent two hours deconstructing it, repacking it, and taping it up to return to the company.
Another friend’s aunt presented her with a couch from the ’70s that was both outdated and decomposing. Her mom insisted she keep the couch so as not to insult her aunt. Now she has to sit on a pile of mothballs that offends multiple senses.
How much do you have to put up with for gratitude’s sake? And what’s the threshold between a bestowal and a burden?
Share your thoughts and non-gift stories in the comments.
Mother: Open your mouth!
Five-year-old kid (shaking head): Mm-mm!
Mother: I said, open your mouth!
Kid: Mm-mm!
Mother: I know you swallowed that gum.
No response.
Mother: I’m not playing! I’m gonna slap you!
Kid opens his mouth. There is no gum.
Mother: You swallowed that cum! — I mean, gum!
Kid: I love you, Mommy.
Mother: I love you, too. Here — have another piece of gum. And don’t swallow it. You hear me?
I was approaching a street corner on a run this morning when a father and his toddler daughter jumped onto the curb. They’d just sprinted across the street and were panting and thrilled.
The father looked up at me from where he was crouching, cueing his daughter to do the same. “Look, she’s running, too!” he said. I laughed.
They get my Cutest Thing I’ve Seen Today award.
This morning, on the way from the 6 train to the turnstyle, I spied a doll lying on the ground. She was yellow, with pretty yarn hair. She was also dirty, as she’d been mashed by the soles of many shoes.
I tried to make myself walk through the turnstyle. But I couldn’t! I kept picturing a kid realizing the doll was lost and shrieking in mourning. I turned around and picked up the stinky doll with two outstretched fingers. I was a hero!
Dolly and I turnstyled. I approached the ticket booth. “Hi, I found this doll on the floor,” I said. “Is there a lost and found?”
“It’s on 34th Street,” she said. She didn’t swoon at the sight of the stuffed child.
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Every morning as I walk on the Upper East Side, I swoon at the children on their way to school. They cover the sidewalks. But these aren’t ordinary children: these are rich children. And they dress the part.
I have a fetish for shoes — teeny, tiny shoes. (This sounds like the pedophiliac version of Sarah Jessica Parker. Pretend it doesn’t.) So when I see a little girl sporting a plaid skirt, gray tights and little patent-leather Mary Janes, I have to refrain from swooping her up and running away.
The logic doesn’t apply to adults. Kid in a Burberry coat: adorable! Parent in a Burberry coat: greedy.
Never mind that these children have an 83 percent chance of maturing into spoiled teens who say “Whatevs.”
A woman in a taxi’s backseat picked her nose today. I know because she hunted for squishy treasure while the cab was stopped at the crosswalk where I stood.
Why do passengers think car windows are one-way mirrors? They’re not. If you can see out, people can see in.
The misconception makes for hilarious people-watching, though. People rock out. They change their clothes. They do unmentionable things. They see how long they can flare their nostrils before their nose muscles reach exhaustion.
Best sighting? Report in comments.
A seven-year-old with her hair clipped back in a barrette turned to her mother, who was chattering in the seat next to her. The kid raised her eyebrows, put her finger to her lips, and said, “Shhh.”
It’s not always cute when kids become their parents.
I berated a woman for her sidewalk rage, so I have to come clean. Yesterday, I had subway fury.
On entering, I spotted a lone empty seat. I lunged for it. But a 50-something woman with googly-eye glasses lunged faster, jetting in front of me to snag the spot.
I think it was the manic look in her eyes that made me envision myself growing into the Hulk and yelling a lot of scary, loud garble. For the 20 minutes I spent on the 6 train between Spring Street and Grand Central, I glared at her. Even as she took out a map and I realized she was a tourist, I glared. As she shrunk into her seat, I glared. As I said to myself, “You were about to steal the seat from her, and besides — you’re 23! I think you can handle standing,” the manic look flashed in my brain and I glared some more.
I have now repented.
Awkward story.
Time: morning. Location: gym weights room. I’m doing crunches in the corner, spying on an academic-looking guy working with his muscular, attractive trainer.
The guy, Books, started working out before the trainer, Buff, arrived. This was a big problem.
Buff: It’s like you’re mad at me. You’re acting all pissy.
Books: No! I’m not. I’m not mad at you.
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A guy in the elevator was eating an apple. I caught myself wincing: he wasn’t good enough for that apple.
Background: I am beyond an apple aficionado. I’m obsessed with apples — I eat at least two a day. Granny Smith are my preferred variety. The crispness, the acidic bite: is there anything purer?
So I caught myself judging this apple eater and I stepped back to analyze why. The guy was smacking his lips. His belly hung over his pants and stretched the buttons of his shirt. He brought the words “sleazy businessman” to mind. Here he was, holding this symbol of purity — ingesting it, even — and emitting sleazy rays throughout the elevator. It was incongruous!
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This morning, I caught a rampage. A woman who had just crossed the street turned around and screamed at a driver, “You could’ve said excuse me!”
Do people understand that if drivers’ windows are closed, they can’t hear you? Also, “excuse me”? Sounds like a case of misdirected aggression to me, composed pedestrian.
Then again, when someone slows down to let me cross the street, I pip, “Thank you!” Any chance that makes it through the glass windshield?
There’s no privacy in New York. But I consider some places “private” because, even though I’m surrounded by people, I don’t know any of them. Privacy via anonymity.
On the bus this morning, I was being anonymous and antisocial, peering over the top of my newspaper at the other passengers. Another woman (“Janice”), across the aisle, was doing the same. A few stops along, a hefty woman (“Franny”) boarded and made it apparent to the rest of the bus that she and Janice were comrades. Janice faked pleasure. Franny didn’t get the fake vibes and wiggled in next to Janice, striking up a conversation that lasted until they both got off at the same stop.
As I watched, I grew frightened that I might run into my own fake friend and slouched further behind my paper. I rarely run into people I know in my public-space hideaways. But then, I only moved into my apartment and started using these transportation routes a month ago. What if I’d lived on the Upper East Side for years and had a community there? Where would I hide? No escape!
“I’m jealous of myself.”
In a doctor’s office waiting room, two strangers made friends over our economic collapse.
“People have become divorced from the value of money,” one declared. “Do you really need a three million dollar house? No. But you need that bonus.”
Discuss.
If a child walking with her mother declares, “Mommy! Ice cream is cold!” I shake my head and think how smart I am by comparison. (“Do you know what Fahrenheit means? How about Kelvins? Got ya, sucker!”). But if a beret-clad French child turns to her mother and says “blahblahblah, Mere!” I gasp in wonder. The words I don’t understand! The guttural rs! She must know about Kelvins and can probably name water’s freezing point.
If the kid speaks Mandarin, forget it. The less I know of the language, the smarter she must be. Never mind that she may not speak English, the Hardest and Best Language On Earth.
