Totally Normal and Not At All Crazy

It’s totally normal and not at all crazy to refuse to pay your gas bill to teach those idiots at National Grid a lesson.

If their website was even the slightest bit navigable, you would gladly log in every month and pay it.  Despite your efforts to tell every representative/technician/person who will listen,  they insisted on creating a veritable black hole of a site, where passwords and usernames and security questions get sucked into a vortex and never heard from again.  They will eventually shut off your gas and you’ll have to take cold showers and pretend it’s the reason you haven’t been able to cook anything.  They’ll also show up at 8:30 on Saturday morning and make you break into your neighbors apartment to access the meter in the basement.  It may not seem worth the inconvenience and potential jail time, but it is.

It’s totally normal and not at all crazy to break up with a guy on Friday, then call him on Sunday to tell him how much you love him.

So what if you freaked out a little on Friday because he had to be somewhere early on Saturday.  One a.m. is not late.  You have every right to pitch a minor hissy fit right before you say goodnight.  And it’s totally cool to call him two days later and leave a voicemail telling him it’s super important and you need to talk.  You didn’t know he was at a restaurant having dinner with his friends and that he would walk out of it onto the street to call you back.  He won’t get mad, he’ll just call you crazy, which you’re not, and then do some manly thinking.

It’s totally normal and not at all crazy to shop online from the store that’s a block away from your office.

Nevermind that you chose to wait 5-7 days for your new clothes to arrive even though you could have walked into the store and gone home with them that same day.  It’s a jungle in there and you don’t need to feel like you’re competing against other predators for the last pair of over-the-knee socks.  It’s also not crazy that you went online just to buy a blazer, but when you saw that if you spent over a certain amount you would qualify for free shipping, you broke the seal and started clicking away and all of a sudden there was way more than that blazer in your cart.

It’s totally normal and not at all crazy to want to kill your best friend after she sends you a picture of what she did all day, lying on the couch in her underwear, after you spent yours working for the man.  An equally normal response: sending her a picture of your foot.

Chivalry: Dead as a Doornail

My coworker recently returned from Atlanta with stories upon stories of Southern gentlemen.  Apparently, they love to do things for women.  Holding open doors, pulling out their chairs, complimenting them.

“If you move to the South,” she told me,  “I guarantee you’ll be engaged within a year.”

Even if I wanted to be engaged within a year, it wouldn’t be worth all the frizzy hair I would have to endure in the humid South.  But, I wouldn’t mind being around all that Southern hospitality and charm, especially after Friday night, when a sniveling little brat of a man stopped the cab I was in to offer the driver 50 bucks to kick me out INTO THE POURING RAIN and take him instead.

Thankfully, my cab driver was a man of honor and turned him down, but if he hadn’t I would have done serious damage to both of them with my swinging purse.

I love New York, but something tells me that would never happen in Atlanta.

Me and Hugh

Yesterday I took my charge to her gymnastics class in Tribeca.  This is my least favorite place in the whole world.  It’s hot, smells like B.O., and overcrowded with parents and babysitters standing around idly and small children oblivious to the fact that they aren’t using their indoor voices.  Yesterday I (and everyone else) heard this from a tiny little girl voice all the way on the other side of the room,

“My mom uses tampons!”

As I was kneeling on the floor looking for something in my bag I looked up and there was a man’s ass a mere 6 inches from my face.  I tried to shimmy away from him, but on the other side of me was a little boy practicing his ninja moves on an invisible enemy.  I was furious, stuck between a strange man’s ass and the wannabe karate kid.  But then the man stood up.  And it was Hugh Jackman.  And it was good.

I suddenly wished I had paid more attention to the ass.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve seen Hugh Jackman at gymnastics.  I saw him quite a lot last year, so you have to believe me when I tell you there always seems to be a little somthin’ somthin’ between us.  We lock eyes, and he smiles in recognition, but there’s something else behind the smile.  Longing.  Yup, that’s it.  And don’t you dare tell me it’s all in my head.  Don’t you dare.

Then, since I have to sit there in the waiting room for the next hour until class is over, I concoct different scenarios in which we start talking and realize that we have amazing chemistry.  Like maybe I drop my phone and he picks it up for me, or we find the only two empty seats left in the place and they’re next to each other so we start talking about how much we both hate it there, or his daughter goes up to him, points at me and says, “That lady is so pretty, daddy.  Invite her to dinner.”

And yes, I’m aware of the fact that he’s married.  Sometimes his wife comes to gymnastics and it fucks up my whole day.  But on days when she doesn’t and it’s just him, it makes that loud, smelly place bearable.

Man vs. Bag

One year for my birthday, the guy I was dating at the time gave me a beautiful Michael Kors bag.  I use the bag all the time.  The guy?  Not so much.  This entry compares the two and clearly identifies the victor: my bag.

The bag is trusty.  It hangs patiently on a hook in my closet or on my doorknob.  Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don’t, and that’s perfectly fine.  It’s always there, making my other bags look shabby as it is the most expensive one I own.

A man is not as reliable.  One can’t just hang him up when not using him and put him on when one wants to.  A bags’ sole purpose in life is to hold your things and hang on your arm looking pretty.  Unfortunately, a man’s isn’t.  I think it’s to watch sports in his boxers.

The bag hasn’t changed since it was given to me almost a year ago.  Given its’ provenance, it’s very well-made.  The color hasn’t faded, there are no holes or rogue strings hanging off of it, all of the zippers are intact.  It’s just as attractive to me now as it was when I first received it.

A man can change a bit.  If I may relate a man’s behavior to that of a bag, I would say his lining ripped.  All of a sudden coins can be heard jingling around in there, but they’re nowhere to be found!  They become lost in the negative space between the leather exterior and the fabric lining on the inside.  Once you start losing lip glosses and dollar bills in there, you either repair it or retire it.

Other women are constantly complimenting me on the bag.  They tell me how lucky I am to own such a beautiful accessory.  And it’s red.  What a daring color!  I wouldn’t say they are jealous, just appreciative of the finer side of fashion.

Let’s just say that many men don’t stimulate similar reactions from the other women in my life.  If anything, they seem confused.  It’s kind of like, “Hey, why are carrying that toaster around and pretending it’s a handbag?”  Get my drift?  Thus, my relationship with my bag has outlived my relationship with the man who gave it to me.

How NOT to Say Hi to a Woman

In keeping with the theme of men and the various ways they piss me off, I’d like to share a little anecdote that happened to me this weekend.

As I was walking down the street on Friday night, I passed a man who was sitting in a parked car on the curb.  As I  got within earshot of him, he called out to me in the most cheerful and non-threatening tone, “Hey big titties!”

That’s not my name, nor do I like being called that.  Did Asshole No. 3,427 think I was going to abandon my plans to lean into his car and say hello?  I can’t imagine so.  He probably thought it was funny, which all of my friends did when I told them, as did I after the intial shock and crippling self-consciousness wore off.

It appears as though there has been some kind of collective plan amongst the men of this fair city to harass me more than usual these days.  Lucky me.

Hell Date

A little over a year ago I went on a date that was so awesomely bad it’s worth writing about today.

Joseph and I met one night when our two mutual friends were too busy making out to pay attention to us.  It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but we hit it off and exchanged numbers.  He was a doctor serving his residency at a hospital in New Jersey and he didn’t have a lot of free time, so we had a few “phone dates” in place of actual dates.  He was a little long-winded, but there was no foreshadowing of the verbal diarrhea that he expelled on our actual first date.

We finally picked a night when we were both free and met at a bar.  As we talked, my mind started to wander to unimportant things like, “I wonder if it stopped raining?” and “What is that damn smoke monster on Lost?”  I became way too interested in what another woman was wearing at the other end of the bar. “I wonder where she bought that?”  Joseph was boring.  I particularly lost interest when he described the ups and downs of still living with one’s mother.  Eventually, he said something that was of some interest to me.

“I spent some time in prison for stabbing someone.”

Now I know we all make mistakes, but there’s a difference between a harmless indiscretion and a violent crime.  He went on to explain that he used to be quite the bad boy and the stab-ee was a punk who deserved it.  Women love bad boys, but this was pushing it for me.  A friend of mine was at a birthday party at another bar, so I suggested we go there.  If the possibility arose that he try to murder me,  I knew my friends would step in.

We arrived at the next bar and as he ordered another drink (I chose to stay sober; my safety was at stake), a black man approached me and tried to pick me up.  He hadn’t realized I was on a date, but once he did he walked away.  When I explained to Joseph what he had said, his response absolutely floored me.

“Well, what do you expect?  He’s a nigger.”

I was stunned into silence, and when I finally found my voice I told him I was offended by that and excused myself to go to the bathroom.  You can’t drop the n-word on a first date!  While I was hiding out I thought to myself that I must be on Hell Date, which was a hidden camera show on BET where one person is set up on a terrible date by a friend.  At the end of the date, a little person dressed as a devil would come out to surprise the victim and poke him or her with his trident.  Where was the little devil now?

I finally went back outside and told Joseph I had to leave.  He shrugged and said, “I’ll go too.  I’m gonna head uptown so I can fuck this other woman that I’ve been seeing.”  I jumped in a cab so fast that Joseph was eating my dust.  And the little person who was supposed to show up so we could all have a good laugh?  He never came.

The Chicken Fight

Men who work at delis, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc: stop fucking with me.

My boss sent me to Westside Market the other day to pick up five baked chickens for a large family dinner she was hosting.  She had ordered them from a man named Ten, and told me that if I asked to speak with him he would help me.

So I walked up to the deli counter at the grocery store and asked the two men working there if I could speak to Ten.  Instead of an answer I received two blank expressions.

“What’s Ten?” One of them asked.

“It’s a guy who works here.”

“Ten’s not a name.  It’s a number.”

I politely replied that I knew Ten was a number, but was there anyone by that name who worked there?  The two men scrunched up their faces, obviously deep in thought.  They discussed it amongst themselves for a few minutes before they came to the conclusion that no, there was no one at Westside Market by that name.  Fine then, maybe one of them could help me instead, so I asked if they knew anything about five baked chickens that had been ordered a couple of hours earlier.  The response, “I’m Ten.”

I think I was supposed to find that funny, but there were 12 hungry people waiting for me, one of them being my boss, so I sighed and rolled my eyes instead.  I think maybe that hurt his feelings because when I asked if I could have the chickens I ordered, he replied, “But you didn’t order them.  Someone else did.”  I’m not going to release anymore details about our conversation, except to say that it ended with me going, “Dude just give me the fucking chickens!”

Too often I walk into a store and if I ask I guy to help me, he does the opposite.  For example, when I asked a man in a deli how much a bag of chips was and he replied, “20 dollars.”  Or when I brought a basket worth of toiletries to the counter at Duane Reade and the cashier told me that none of it was for actually for sale.  Sometimes you’ll get a smile out of me, other times, not so much.  The only men who I let get away with it were my buddies from the deli across the street from my old apartment because I knew them for years.  But that deli burned down.  How come nothing good lasts forever?

Anyway, is it so much to ask that I be treated like a customer?  Unless you’d like to give me some stuff for free.  In that case, tease away.

Warning: Don’t Fall Asleep on a Stoop in Bushwick

I just witnessed a classic Brooklyn moment, and it was damn good.

I glanced out my 2nd storey window this afternoon and noticed a man passed out on the stoop across the street.  At first I thought maybe he had fallen and hurt himself, but upon closer investigation I realized that he had just fallen into what was probably an alcohol or drug induced sleep.  A little unnerved, I walked away from the window.

When I returned about 20 minutes later, a delivery man was just arriving in front of the building.  He gently nudged the man in the leg, and the man responded by moving his arm slightly, but that was all.  (At least at this point we know he’s not dead).  The delivery guy decides to call the customer from his cell phone to come downstairs.  When he appears in the doorway, he swings open the front door and knocks the unconscious man in the head.  I actually heard the thud from my post across the street.  Unconscious dude barely reacts; he just moves his leg.  The two men have themselves a little chuckle, the customer pays for his food, delivery guy walks away, and unconscious guy just goes right on sleeping.

At this point a few of my neighbors from the building next to mine have noticed the unconscious man.  Two of them walk over to him to poke and prod him, but he is beyond sleeping.  This is about the time when I sat down in a chair with a bowl of popcorn and made myself comfortable at the window.  More neighbors come outside and a plan is hatched amongst the older men.  Do they call the cops?  Of course not.  They take matters into their own hands and decide they have to flush him off the stoop by using the fire hydrant in front of my building.

They unscrew it and the water comes rushing out, but falls just short of hitting their target.  They argue for a while about what to do next, then send a little boy inside to get a soda can to hold against the mouth of the hydrant to extend the reach and aim of the water.  While the boy is inside, two kids pass by on their bikes, trying to avoid the stream.  Their attempts to stay dry only provided ammunition for the older men, who made it their new mission to hose them down while they waited for their soda can.  At least they were good sports about it.

With the soda can finally in hand, my neighbors are back to Operation Flush Out.  They take turns holding the can at different angles against the water, taking advice from other people who have come out of their apartments to help.  After 20 minutes of this I can’t help but wonder to myself, “Why not just fill up a glass, walk over, and dump it on his head?”  I suppose their way was more fun.  Finally, and with a loud cheer from all who participated, the water hits the man.  He sits up and shakes his head.  The man who sprayed him walks over to pat him on the back and help him up.  He’s okay, albeit a little embarrassed, and all’s well that ends well.

Except that the guy just lay down again and went back to sleep.