Today was the first truly beautiful day of the year in
I had to work.
Nevertheless, I decided to enjoy it as much as I could. Unfortunately, the beautiful weather also brought out every single asshole in
Unlike other parts of the country, just going to work and back in
Oh, that may sound harsh, but I will never understand the
And they ALWAYS manage to miss the toilet completely.
Apparently, I picked up this Urinary Gene from my mother who has the same problem with delivery and home maintenance guys. It got so bad, she recently told me, that when they ask to use the bathroom now, she said, “I just tell them very politely that my bathroom is out of order.”
She’s had her bathroom rugs peed on just one time too many.
But I digress.
As usual.
In any case, on this beautiful day, I witnessed not only an amount of public drunkenness not seen since St. Patty’s Day---but I also saw an inordinate amount of rude people, nasty people, yelling and screaming people, just plain loud people, and all around jerks.
For the first time in my life, I actually saw and heard the original meet-up between a hooker and a John. Sure, I’ve seen hookers and Johns before---but by the time I'd see them together, they’d already hooked up and were either quietly discussing numbers in a hidden recess or one of them was yelling at the other to “get the fuck away from me!"
By the way---the encounter went a little like this:
Huge fat woman with a big ass and short shorts and heels walks down the street. Dude with do-rag and baggy jeans notices this little lovely and does a double-take. She keeps walking. He does the full turnaround and yells out, “Hey baby. Got five minutes to spare?”
Baby barely turns around; but with a charming ennui mumbles, barely audible, “Yeah”. And keeps walking.
Do-rag picks up his step to catch up to his lovely and the two of them saunter off into the sunset.
Yes, it was sunset. He with the gangsta limp-walk and she with the visible ass cheeks and worn out heels. So romantic.
I’m sure they’ll have a beautiful life together---for the next thirty minutes or so.
On the bright side---these were two of the few people who did NOT get on my nerves today.
It started with Lighter Guy.
With subway repairs taking place over the weekend (and apparently, the past twenty years) everyone on my route was forced to take the free shuttle bus for several stops till you reached a working subway connection. On this bus, a few seats behind me, was Lighter Guy.
Lighter Guy was a thirty-something Spanish guy sitting with his girlfriend who held a metal lighter in his hand and constantly kept flicking it open and close, open and close, open and close.
At first, I had no idea where this noisome noise was coming from. I just wanted to look out the bus window and enjoy the sunshine. And then, like some Chinese Water Torture, Lighter Guy’s nervous tick started gnawing its way into my ear. I looked back. Oh, it’s some idiot flicking his lighter. Surely he’ll stop. After all, what can he possibly be gaining by opening and closing his lighter?
He didn’t.
And it grated and scratched at my brain to the point where I finally turned around and glanced his way---after all, perhaps he was absentmindedly simply flicking his lighter and didn’t realize the agony he was causing. Surely, once he realized his mistake, he would stop.
After a moment, he saw me looking at him.
Phew. Problem solved. I turned back to look out the window at the sunshine.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The guy sitting in front of me seemed to be suffering from the same frayed nerves from this continual flicking and clicking and turned back to look at Lighter Guy.
Lighter Guy stopped.
Then, he started up again.
This was unbelievable! How could someone possibly be so intentionally rude?
I turned back again and this time, gave him my cold, hard Paddington Bear Stare.
He just looked at me and kept flicking his lighter.
My head was bursting. Seriously? Are you kidding me? What a sorry excuse for a man, I thought. Ooooo---you’re a big man. You can flick your lighter and annoy a whole bus load of people for seven minutes and nobody can do anything about it for nine whole blocks. Ooooo. What a tough guy.
I mentally made peace with this idiot by realizing that the tiny lighter was probably the same size as his penis and, since he couldn’t masturbate in public (anymore, that is) he played with his tiny lighter to simulate the effect. Sad little man. Really sad.
This made me feel better. Once again, my imagination was my only comfort in a city full of assholes.
Oh, they were everywhere today. Even the people I work with. I watched as one of my co-workers screwed me over, another treated just about the nicest girl there like dirt, and watched about four other co-workers in bad moods push and shove and snap at each other. And then a party of six had a perfectly fine dinner and then, one of the women at the table griped because, although she had gotten an entire meal for under twenty dollars, when she tried to get something for free and was told she couldn't, simply replied, "This is the worse place ever!"
What? Everything seemed fine until you couldn't get something for free? And then, when I said thank you and have a nice evening, the woman just scrunched up her face and walked past me in silence.
It was at this point, that I lost my faith in the human race. Again.
Waiting tables is bad enough. Some days I feel like Orson Welles in The Third Man looking down from the Ferris Wheel at the tiny “dots” below:
“Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.”
I suppose there are Useless Dots in every city---but, in New York, just the sheer number of people and your constant closeness to them makes the odds much worse that you’ll be standing right next to at least three of them over the course of your average day. And, on a beautiful day like today---the Dots really came out.
Of course, you can’t kill people. That would be wrong. And, unlike most New Yorkers, I’m not a yeller. I don’t like yelling and screaming. I generally just sit there and let the anger fester. I don’t really throw things or break things---though, on a particularly bad day, I have occasionally had the need to throw my waitress tray down on the kitchen counter in anger. But no one is harmed. Not even the tray.
But tonight, as I sat on the subway platform waiting to go home, I looked around and played a little mental game.
Which Dots Can Stop Moving?
I discovered that I didn’t like about 20% of the people there. If some heavenly body came down and spoke to me and said, “Hey---I’ve got to get rid of 20% of the people on this platform and you get to choose…”
Well, I had them all picked out. They were the screaming people. The drunks. The bum who’d peed all over himself. The irritating guy yelling about Jesus. The unseen person who’d eaten about twenty shrimp and thrown the shrimp tails on the floor. And the guy who upchucked godknowswhat and spit on the platform. Because frankly, I’ve never had the need to spit anywhere in public in my life. What do these people have in their lungs, for godsakes? And I still smoke! I’ve never spit on the ground. Never. Never even thought about it. I’ve also never put my gum under a table in my life. Never. Not even under my desk in grade school. No. Gum goes in a piece of paper or a napkin. Not under a table. Who ARE these people? And why are they allowed to live?
Yes. That’s the mood I was left with after this absolutely gorgeous day.
If you don’t understand this mood---you’ve never lived in
So now, I sit here at the computer, trying to come up with something nice to end this with. Some pleasant illumination that takes you out of this horrible journey and shows you that, yes---there is hope, indeed. Some beautiful Anne Frank-like moment where she writes, “I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
I’m a good writer, damnit. Surely I can do this.
I think back thru my day. Straining to remember one kind person or even one small act of kindness. Just something. Something positive. Did something nice happen to me when I walked in my building tonight? Well, the guy who screamed “Fuck!” when he dropped his Duane Reade bag on the shuttle and then bent over to pick it up revealing his ass crack to the entire bus wound up being a guy who lived in my building.
I held the elevator door for him.
He didn’t say anything to me.
I don’t think that counts.
I walked in my door. Um…well, the cat didn’t throw up today. That was good.
I think some more. I strain for a good fifteen minutes. There HAS to be something good about today. There HAS to be. People HAVE to be good---right?
As I run my bath, I realize that today, I simply have to be thankful for a bright, sunny day and a non-vomiting kitty.
I suppose you need the bad days like this to appreciate the good ones. And the same goes for people. Sure, life might be easier if some of those dots stopped moving---but they make you appreciate the Good Dots all the more.
Be a good dot. Don’t spit on the sidewalk. I have to walk there, too.
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