Tag Archives: subway

Lame Adventure 201: Close Encounters of the Worst Kind

Posted on June 24, 2011 | 3 comments

Every so often I encounter a complete stranger that is so unnecessarily inconsiderate they catapult to frontrunner status for the Unbearable Dense-ness of Being Award.  This has happened to me twice this week and so I have two nominees.  The incidents occurred at two reliable sources of combat pay in an average New Yorker’s daily life – the subway and the laundromat.

On my way into work at rush hour, I boarded a crowded 2 Express train at the 72nd Street subway station heading downtown.  Using my Elastigirl skills, I elongated my being into a slot of space the width of a pencil next to a lean businessman.  Between the two of us, we easily allowed four more passengers entry including Drizella the Hair Whipper who parked herself next to me.  Initially I did not even notice her, but once the train pulled out of the station and began to pick up speed, Drizella started twirling her ponytail in a circular motion, oblivious that it was continually hitting me in the face.  I think the obvious:

Me (thinking):  Huh, my new low beaten with hair.

I bellow aloud:

Me (bellowing aloud):  Give the hair twirling a rest.  You’re hitting me in the face!

Drizella stops and looks at me with this expression:

What'd I do?

Earlier in the week on an evening that was warm with a nice breeze, perfect weather to be sitting outdoors sipping a cold beverage with any member of my posse, I instead chose to do laundry since I was fast approaching the underwear-I’ve-yet-to-ditch-but-if-I-were-caught-dead-wearing-it-my-corpse-would-be-mortified phase.  This is underwear I would not even photograph for this site for fear that would be the one image from this blog that goes viral.

As I was waiting for my wash to finish, I wheeled over a cart that looks identical to the one pictured below.

If this cart could talk, what might it say?

A woman in my own over-forty-under-death age group, mumbles something incoherent, and makes a point of taking that cart and placing it in front of her own washer that will finish several minutes after mine.  I have a moment of, “Huh?”  I don’t ask questions since this is New York, Loon Capital of America.  As I go to take another cart since there are several to choose from, she gives me the stink eye as if I deliberately took the cart that must have sentimental meaning to her.

Cluster of seen one, seen them all carts - not to everyone!

She elaborately lines it with a white plastic bag, further staking her cart-turf.

My wash finishes and as I load my wet clothes into my new cart, I wonder if she is also going to flash her crazy at me in the direction of the dryer I select even though there are several available?  Normally, I unload the washer and load the dryer at warp speed, and return home until five minutes before my dryer finishes.  As I ponder this next potential confrontation with a dryer, I move so slowly I give the impression that I’m doing Tai Chi, so I look like my own brand of oddball.  The dryer I choose does not set her off, but then I have an even more dreadful thought.  Will she open m y dryer once I leave and pull something out such as a sock?  If I were to enter her abode, would I discover mountains of lost socks belonging to laundromat patrons she’s targeted?

Me (thinking):  Am I in the presence of the Missing Sock She-devil?

If so, how inconvenient for I do need to return home to retrieve my laundry bag. I am now loading my dryer Tai Chi-style, but I’m also waiting for her wash to finish.  When it does, I notice that she doesn’t use the plastic bag lined cart she took away from me.  She removes her wet clothes by hand and carries them to a dryer.

The music from The Twilight Zone plays on the iPod in my head.

Then, a miracle happens.  She leaves!  The combination of my intuition and infinite paranoia suspects her departure could be brief.  Even though she has timed her dryer for almost half an hour, I sense she is going to return much sooner.  I race home, grab this week’s issue of The New Yorker along with my laundry bag, and boomerang back at warp speed.  Within minutes of my return, Missing Sock She-devil is back, too.  There are two other women, one folding and the other, a woman in her early twenties, loading her wet clothes into a dryer. Missing Sock She-devil now focuses her wrath on the woman half her age.

Me (thinking):  What the hell has she done? Leave my daughter alone!

Then, I recall I’m both not this young woman’s mother and I’m also a dedicated non-breeder.  Once the young woman has inserted her quarters into her dryer she leaves the premises.  Missing Sock She-devil removes her clothes from her dryer, even though her load appears to be damp, and her machine still has fifteen minutes to go.  She could have given those minutes to the young woman.  As she walks past me, I resist having myself beaten to within an inch of my life with a bottle of bleach by asking:

Me:  Helped yourself to any socks lately?

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Lame Adventure 162: Intelligence — Artificial and Lacking

Posted on February 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

Anyone who was remotely surprised that IBM’s supercomputer Watson swept the floor with the two best-of-Jeopardy! human competitors must ride New York City transit, particularly the subway.  Why the subway?  The subway is liberally populated with boneheads as well as the mentally deranged; the exact types that would give brainy nerds the edge over the son of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Hal.  Also, what is it with Watson’s cheery-eerie calm voice?  These brilliant engineers can create a stupendous storehouse of knowledge, but they can only create a creepy voice straight out of science fiction for it?  If IBM had the foresight to consult me about Watson’s voice, I would have urged them to make Watson sound like Dusty Springfield.  She managed to make the first “the” in The Look of Love sound like tantric sex.  Meow!  Yet, everything about Watson had to resemble the dullest geek with a crusty tube sock stashed in the nightstand.

This has been a memorably annoying week commute-wise for I have managed to miss my train into or out of work every single day thanks to the inconsideration of fellow riders.  Going into work on Monday, the bad karma I earned for shoving Edith Blicker off first base in the schoolyard playground (note: Edith was my friend and the only kid smaller than me) in second grade finally caught up with me forty-odd years later.  That morning in the heart of rush hour, I stood amongst the freshly washed masses in the densely crowded 72nd Street subway station, waiting for my turn to enter the turnstile.  Unfortunately, thanks to that moment of playground aggression, just as I heard my downtown express train entering, I found myself stranded behind a woman feeding a fistful of expired Metrocards through the turnstile.  When she exhausted her supply, I heard my train going.  As much as I loathed her, I did not shove her.

Wednesday morning I drew the short straw when I hotfooted across the platform at 14th Street station to a waiting 1 local only to find myself pursued by the 14th Street Lunatic.  This was my reward for rocketing into that train and forgetting to look where he might be lurking.   Naturally, he perched himself next to where I was sitting and proceeded to jump around, wave his arms wildly, smack a woman’s newspaper out of her hands before stripping off his coat, sweater and shirt, dropping them to the floor and then ranting in fluent gibberish.  I was trying to read an article in The New Yorker about Scientology, but my comprehension was interrupted by a single phrase playing inside my head like a mantra, “Don’t make eye contact with him, don’t make eye contact with him, don’t make eye contact with him.”  He kicked all of his clothes out the door at Houston Street and followed his outerwear just as the doors were shutting.  I muttered:

Me:  Have a nice day.

Fast-forward to Thursday evening’s ride home, I entered behind a bottleneck of commuters in the Chambers Street station.  Between a sprawling homeless woman encamped on the floor on a stairwell landing and a mountainous woman standing frozen in the middle of that stairwell’s opposite side yammering on her cell phone, I and several others missed our train trying to maneuver around these obstacles.  For the life of me I will never understand the appeal of planting oneself like a tree stump in the middle of a subway station stairwell during rush hour to talk on the phone.  The popularity of doing this in the Chambers Street station seems to be on the rise.  Word must be out that this is the go-to station to visit if you have an itch to conduct an epic cell phone conversation about nonsense in a public space.

Unrelated to any stupidity inflicted upon me by fellow riders, on Tuesday morning I managed to inflict myself with a hefty dose of my own making.  Upon exiting the 1 local at my destination, Franklin Street station,  instead of hearing the conductor announce the usual:

Conductor:  Next stop, Chambers Street station.

My faulty ears heard:

Conductor:  Next stop, President Dick Cheney station.

That was infinitely more disturbing than the sound of Watson’s voice.

Watson's avatar supposedly smiling. Yeah. Sure. Right.

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Lame Adventure 147: Roger Federer’s Family Jewels

Posted on January 7, 2011 | Leave a comment

While continuing to advance at the Qatar Open this week, tennis maestro, Roger Federer, hit another between the legs shot winner.  The crowd went wild.  See below:

One day someone will likely assemble a highlight reel of the many variations of this extraordinary shot by this extraordinary athlete.  If this highlight reel exists today, I could not find it on YouTube.

As much as I enjoy seeing this shot, it scares me a bit, too, possibly because I know that I am a closet klutz.  Recently, while walking down the subway station’s steps, en route to work, I narrowly missed tripping over a woman’s gargantuan handbag that she was carrying so low, it could have doubled as a weapon of major destruction.  Had I caught my foot in her elephantine-sized satchel, I would have taken a flying leap down the rest of the concrete stairs, broken my nose and probably several select slow healing bones, as well as shattering my glasses, before tumbling onto the tracks into the third rail, and proceeding to fry to death while suffering extreme embarrassment.  I listened to my inner mother’s warning to resist doing anything idiotic, and ignored the urge to pass this blockade on feet but by practicing restraint, I did miss my train.

Back to daredevil Roger, I know well that he is an elite athlete, and although I am not a male of the species, my ovaries always jump into my throat a little whenever I consider the tragic consequences if Fed did the unthinkable, misjudged the speeding ball and hit it high.

<Shudder>

That horrifying mis-hit, and the viral video that would surely follow, would truly redefine the meaning of “the shot heard round the world.”

Fortunately, this living legend has already fathered twins.

The tennis world's Fred Astaire, Fed, and Gene Kelly, Rafa, pressing the flesh; will they finally meet in the US Open this year?

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Lame Adventure 146: Back to the Daily Grind

Posted on January 5, 2011 | Leave a comment

Tuesday was my first day back at work following my seventeen-day hiatus.  Due to the mountains of garbage bags piled high on the sidewalk because trash collection has been hindered since December 26th’s epic snowstorm, there was a very narrow lane to walk enroute to the 72nd Street subway station.  I could have done what a guy in a trench coat did – walk in the middle of West 73rd Street, but this is New York, where oncoming traffic speeds up even if you’re in the sidewalk with the walk signal on your side.  I had zero desire to wind up road kill on my first day back at the grind in the New Year.  Therefore, I was stuck walking up the narrow swath of sidewalk behind a drip of woman with a little less sensuality than Olive Oyl – no thought provoking fantasies playing in my head there, unless trampling her counts.  She walked so slowly, she could have been a Yugo stuck in park.  I felt myself feeling a tad anxious:

Me (what I wanted to scream):  Move your boney ass, girlfriend!  I’d like to get to work before the weekend!

Me (thinking):  Calm down.  Don’t set off your gastritis.  So you might be a little late.  It’s not the end of the world.

I entered the subway station – just as the packed express train heading downtown was pulling out and a local with empty seats had entered.  I hopped on the local.  This I only do when I’m not running late, but today I thought, “Screw it.  I want to read my New Yorker.”  I worked my way over to two guys hogging four seats – the death defying dude in the trench coat and a chub built like Buddha.  I could feel Buddha reading over my shoulder, but when I opened my magazine to the massively wordy The Talk of the Town section, he re-focused his gaze on material more suited to his interests, a discarded Kit Kat wrapper lying on the floor.

With the theme from Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon playing on my internal iPod, an orchestration I would appreciate played at my funeral (click the link; it’s well worth a listen), I exited the train at my Tribeca stop and low-tailed to my place of employ a full ten minutes late.

When I enter, who do I see standing at the front desk, leafing through her pile of mail?  Elsbeth, my boss.  Since I have been the middle finger of her right hand going on seven years, and this is the first time she has seen my scowling face in eighteen days, if she’s aware that I’m late, she doesn’t mention it.  I approach her.

Me:  Happy New Year, Boss.

Elsbeth:  Looks like someone went through the mail while I was away.

I normally retrieve her mail when I enter.  My Lord and Master hands a stack of junk to her husband to discard.

Elsbeth:  Happy New Year.  Did you have a nice vacation?

Me:  Yes.  Did you?

Elsbeth:  Yes.

It is evident that my leader is feeling as morose as me about being back.  Comforting.

Elsbeth and I are given an elevator ride up to our fifth floor office, so I’m spared having to climb five flights of stairs; the highlight of my day.  We enter the office where we greet the staff.  Everyone looks dour.  I mingle with my two closest buddies, Ling and Greg, and although I’m truly happy to see them, we’re all in agreement that it sucks to be back.

By early afternoon, the bane of my existence, the printer, has begun jamming incessantly.

Did you miss me?

By day’s end, I’m ready for another seventeen days off.

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Lame Adventure 136: Classical music hangover

Posted on December 13, 2010 | 1 comment

Although I generally avoid classical music and I am not much of a fan of ballet, there are exceptions.  For example, when Albee and I saw Darren Aronofsky’s sensational new film, Black Swan, I realized that I am not only familiar with Tchaikovsky’s score, but I like it very much.  Since I am essentially a classical music ignoramus, I will admit that when I heard the score to Swan Lake in the film, I had a daylight moment and thought to myself, “Oh, so that’s Swan Lake!”  I would not have had the same dunderheaded response to any classic rock song on the Rolling Stones’ Exiles on Main Street, a recording I know well almost from the day of its release.

Move over Natalie Portman, here's NYC's living statue ballerina, Therisa Barber, standing still for hours in the Times Square subway station, unintentionally pursuing sponsorship from Aleve.

Recently, I volunteer ushered an Obie-award winning show called Three Pianos that’s currently in previews at the New York Theater Workshop.  The New York Times aptly refers to this unique production based on composer Franz Schubert’s depressing 24-song cycle Winterreise as “a rowdy mash note to Schubert.”  This mostly dreary song cycle by itself might make one want to stick his or her head in the oven, nor did I find any of it recognizable as I did Tchaikovsky.  Fortunately, the energetic trio that are the masterminds behind and in front of this production — the creators, Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy are also the cast, do their best to discourage audience casualties.  What they do is they start pouring wine for theatergoers as soon as they enter the auditorium.

The intention of this boisterous, high-energy production is to make the audience feel like they’re watching an informal Schubertiade (an event celebrating Schubert’s music).  Even for those that do not share the cast’s deep affinity for this 19th Century Viennese composer, it’s very easy to acquire at least a little buzz in exchange for showing up and sticking around.  At the conclusion, I noticed that many members of the audience exited smiling, and a few seemed to have the wobbles.

If you’re someone closed off to the idiosyncrasies of unconventional theater and you do not have any affinity for classical music whatsoever, you might still race for the exits on this one.  That was exactly what one of my fellow ushers, M, did.  In the two years that I’ve volunteer ushered several off-Broadway plays, I’ve never been in a situation where my co-usher walked out.  I did not know what to think, but I recalled that she had no problem pounding three glasses of wine she declared was not very good before the show started.  Therefore, when she took off, I initially thought that possibly she had escaped to vomit.  Yet, she not only seemed perfectly sober, but completely appalled, when we both noticed an audience member, Happy Man, a burly bearded fellow who was feeling immense joie de vivre, forgo the plastic cup he received upon entering the theater lobby, to drink his complimentary wine straight from the bottle.  Terra Fossil Wines, you have at least one ardent fan.

M returned to participate in the clean up.  She explained to me, “I couldn’t take it anymore.”  She said she left to take a walk.  I presume that the sounds of Schubert were not playing on the iPod in her head, but I resisted asking.

Schubert lives in the NYTW!

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Lame Adventure 100: The First Centennial

Posted on September 17, 2010 | 4 comments

Since I launched this blog late last January, I had no idea I would write a second post much less ninety-nine more, but here it is my one hundredth lame tale.

To illustrate how much the number one hundred is lionized, I Google searched it and was directed to links to sites hawking “100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know” (count me out), as well as another about “100 Women in Hedge Funds.”  I have no clue what a hedge fund is but my mind wandered to thoughts of the hedges that were in my parents’ back yard.  Along that same line of deep thinking, I mentally time-traveled to “lettuce prey,” images of grasshoppers crawling over heads of lettuce I would envision whenever the priest in the church of my childhood, Jesus Christ This is Boring, would declare, “Let us pray.”

Image is not to scale unless you're six-years-old and and in church.

Google also had an Amazon.com link to a book called “The One Hundred: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Must Own.”  Pictured below is the contents of my closet that I call “The Thirty: A Guide to the Pieces Every Stylish Woman Would Deny Owning.”

Why closets have doors.

The only link that Google displayed that intrigued me enough to click was “YouTube – 100 Greatest Hits of YouTube in 4 Minutes.”  It’s packed with those two YouTube staples – cats and kids as well as numerous numbskulls falling down painfully and a slew of dancing fools.  I enjoyed watching these clips immensely.

Considering that there are bloggers that easily crank out twenty or thirty posts a day, this milestone is minimalist.  Then, I brightened when it occurred to me that if I continue to write Lame Adventures an average of three times a week until I am age 100 that might be something to crow about.  I ran this idea by Milton:

Me:  What do you think we’ll be like if I’m still writing my blog when you’re 97 and I’m 100?

Milton:  Dead.

If my dear friend and I defy the odds and we both happen to be around several decades hence, perhaps that tale will go like this:

Lame Adventure 7345: My Centennial

Today, I am 100.

Even though I can no longer see or hear very well, my D-cup nose remains fully operational, which is a blessing and a curse.  Right now I smell the fragrant aroma of toast, unless my Columbia grad student neighbor, Schenectady, is wearing a massive amount of perfume that smells exactly like toast – a very real possibility.

Over my ten decades, I’ve witnessed countless fads, the hippie look, the punk look, the preppie look, the grunge look, the Goth look, the hipster look, the cowboy look, the zookeeper look, and my personal favorite, the I don’t care look.  I did not anticipate that after every imaginable look had been exhausted, fashionistas would zero in on scent with a fervor that smells exactly like that obsolete form of currency, cash.

I know I’m an old timer when I find myself sitting next to a pretty young thing on the subway train who reeks of cheeseburger or a ten topping pizza.  What is even more amazing to me is how men of all ages appear to be drawn to women that smell like pancakes, fried chicken or pie.  Classic fragrances of my day are not only soundly rejected by anyone who wants to be considered fashionable, I recently read an article in digital Vogue comparing Chanel No. 5 to embalming fluid.  That strikes me as sacrilegious.

Milton, my dear compadre, who I have taken to calling “Miss Jane Pittman” since he reached 90, will turn 97 next month.  He called me today:

Milton:  Happy birthday.  I’m so happy that you’re still alive.  How does it feel to be 100?

Me:  I feel like the poster child for tai chi.  Ling called and wished me a happy birthday.

Milton:  How is she?

Me:  She’s okay, but having a crisis over her granddaughter, who’s wearing some perfume that smells like soup dumplings.  We’re completely on the same page about hating this ridiculous trend.  I don’t get it.  Why do kids want to run around smelling like a deli counter?  Can you explain that to me?

The line is quiet.

Me:  Are you there?

Milton:  This could kill our friendship.

Me:  Spill it.

Milton (sheepish):  I sniffed a guy on the bus that smelled like waffles drenched in syrup … I got aroused; I even drooled a little.

I absorb this admission.

Me:  The next time you ride the bus, Mrs. Butterworth,  wear a bib.

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