For crying out loud! (Very long but somewhat amusing rant. Feel free to throw in your own stories)
I work very hard at looking like the typical unapproachable 'Im in a hurry and you're in my way so MOVE' New Yorker. But apparently I havent put in enough hours because people are forever stopping me in my tracks for help.
I take the bus from NJ to the Port Authority every morning and anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be in that area knows the level of depravity that you waddle through just to get to the bright lights and congestion of the tourist traps on 42 and Times Square.
So with this said, when people come up to you at random, your Ninja instincts kick in and you're liek 'you talkin' to me? Huh? You talkin' to me punk?'![]()
But people are ALWAYS talking to me! I have je ne se quois that seems to attract the infirmed, the old and the downright cuckoo and ALWAYS when I am on my way somewhere.
You say, so? Just walk away. And I should. That would be the wisest thing to do. Unfortunately I am not only blessed with a 'come harrass me' face, but also with a 'shiii*t , fawk, if I don't help them they might be the next rocket scientist with a cure for the next plague to try and wipe out mankind and I will be the reason the cure is never made and we all become dust bunnies,' heart.
Today it was one of the old that found me as I tried to hustle through the usual homeless asking for the same hard-earned pennies I gave them just yesterday, and the Salvation Amry guy who wants those same pennies I just gave to the homeless guy so he can buy him a steak instead of a beer. I dodge past the Metro news guy trying to whack me with a free paper and duck into Duane Reade into a moment of blessed peace in the aisle to decide what contact rewetting solution to buy so that I will be partially blind in only one eye rather than both until I can get to work and take them out.
As I go to pay, a hispanic woman with too much makeup and not enough words in her English dictionary starts asking the security guard, the cashiers, and random people for help in locating something. I try to make myself reaaaaly small so that no one sees me. Of course being that I am 5'6 and wearing 3 1/2 inch heels, I am Gulliver among the day laboring Mexican Lilliputians standing around me buying their breakfast and MONSTER energy drinks.
I try not to make eye contact but of course my concience twists my sensitive spots hard and I glance over. She sees me and I see the relief in her eyes for finding a kindred, stupid soul. There is also relief in the eyes of the security guard who can go back to practicing for the part of Scrooge in next year's Christmas Spectacular at Radio City.
She begins to tell me in rapid fire spanish, that her son is sick. Her grown @ss son who is the only one in her entire family of 8 visiting from Venezuela, who speaks any word of English and who is currently trying to connect with God on the porcelain phone to ask him when exactly he is going to die from the alien that is inside him eating his insides and forcing him to a fate of projectile pea green soup like our little friend in the Exorcist.
My new friend was sent from the Milford Plaza hotel in a cab to the Duane Reade 4 blocks away to become the Venezuelan Clara Barton who would save her son from the demonic stomach virus and thus manage to get her whole family into cabs and back to the airport for their Miami flight in exactly three hours. Of course, no one thought of how she would fidn the medicine she needed since she neither speaks, reads, or understands any English. And even if she managed to find some good (stupid) soul to stop their daily life and help her, how would she flag down the cab again in an area where they cannot STOP for more than 5 seconds to toss you onto the curb with your luggage before the donut muncher on the corner gives them a ticket?
I'll tell you how....
So after ten minutes of my broken spanish and her complete lack of English, we figure out she needs immodium and a nausea inhibiter. I find them both for her, as well as gingerale (she actually knew the word soda) and water. we rush back to the line to pay, only to find that it has multiplied much like the parsites currently squatting in her son.
After another ten minutes of being on line, she once again latches onto me and aks me to stay with her while she goes outside. Now my Ninja instincts are on full speed ahead again ebcause I am waiitng for someone to try and steal my purse or carve me like scrimshaw any moment now from a dark corner of uninterested people.
Holding ym hand she half drags me, huffing and puffing with her to the Milford Hotel, trying to keep her 30 extra pounds from falling off into the street while I try to keep my eyes open and my free hand ready to do some battle. Fortunately my 20 pound purse should be registered as a deadly weapon so I am well armed and ready to get down with my bad self.
We arrive at the crowded hotel on 45th and she clasps my hand and thanks me so profusely I feel a wee bit bad I am still looking over my my shoulder (and hers) for the would-be murderer. she tells me her name is Angelo and blesses me many times over and I skedaddle, still in one piece though I am now huffing it to get to work on time.
Hopefully Angela's son is as triumphant as Sigourney Weaver in defeating the aliens that lay within and they all get to the airport on time to harrass anopther unsuspecting (cue stupid) good soul into helping them find their Miami gate and thus missing their own plane to Timbuktu.
Merry Frickin Christmas.![]()
I take the bus from NJ to the Port Authority every morning and anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be in that area knows the level of depravity that you waddle through just to get to the bright lights and congestion of the tourist traps on 42 and Times Square.
So with this said, when people come up to you at random, your Ninja instincts kick in and you're liek 'you talkin' to me? Huh? You talkin' to me punk?'
You say, so? Just walk away. And I should. That would be the wisest thing to do. Unfortunately I am not only blessed with a 'come harrass me' face, but also with a 'shiii*t , fawk, if I don't help them they might be the next rocket scientist with a cure for the next plague to try and wipe out mankind and I will be the reason the cure is never made and we all become dust bunnies,' heart.
Today it was one of the old that found me as I tried to hustle through the usual homeless asking for the same hard-earned pennies I gave them just yesterday, and the Salvation Amry guy who wants those same pennies I just gave to the homeless guy so he can buy him a steak instead of a beer. I dodge past the Metro news guy trying to whack me with a free paper and duck into Duane Reade into a moment of blessed peace in the aisle to decide what contact rewetting solution to buy so that I will be partially blind in only one eye rather than both until I can get to work and take them out.
As I go to pay, a hispanic woman with too much makeup and not enough words in her English dictionary starts asking the security guard, the cashiers, and random people for help in locating something. I try to make myself reaaaaly small so that no one sees me. Of course being that I am 5'6 and wearing 3 1/2 inch heels, I am Gulliver among the day laboring Mexican Lilliputians standing around me buying their breakfast and MONSTER energy drinks.
I try not to make eye contact but of course my concience twists my sensitive spots hard and I glance over. She sees me and I see the relief in her eyes for finding a kindred, stupid soul. There is also relief in the eyes of the security guard who can go back to practicing for the part of Scrooge in next year's Christmas Spectacular at Radio City.
She begins to tell me in rapid fire spanish, that her son is sick. Her grown @ss son who is the only one in her entire family of 8 visiting from Venezuela, who speaks any word of English and who is currently trying to connect with God on the porcelain phone to ask him when exactly he is going to die from the alien that is inside him eating his insides and forcing him to a fate of projectile pea green soup like our little friend in the Exorcist.
My new friend was sent from the Milford Plaza hotel in a cab to the Duane Reade 4 blocks away to become the Venezuelan Clara Barton who would save her son from the demonic stomach virus and thus manage to get her whole family into cabs and back to the airport for their Miami flight in exactly three hours. Of course, no one thought of how she would fidn the medicine she needed since she neither speaks, reads, or understands any English. And even if she managed to find some good (stupid) soul to stop their daily life and help her, how would she flag down the cab again in an area where they cannot STOP for more than 5 seconds to toss you onto the curb with your luggage before the donut muncher on the corner gives them a ticket?
I'll tell you how....
So after ten minutes of my broken spanish and her complete lack of English, we figure out she needs immodium and a nausea inhibiter. I find them both for her, as well as gingerale (she actually knew the word soda) and water. we rush back to the line to pay, only to find that it has multiplied much like the parsites currently squatting in her son.
After another ten minutes of being on line, she once again latches onto me and aks me to stay with her while she goes outside. Now my Ninja instincts are on full speed ahead again ebcause I am waiitng for someone to try and steal my purse or carve me like scrimshaw any moment now from a dark corner of uninterested people.
Holding ym hand she half drags me, huffing and puffing with her to the Milford Hotel, trying to keep her 30 extra pounds from falling off into the street while I try to keep my eyes open and my free hand ready to do some battle. Fortunately my 20 pound purse should be registered as a deadly weapon so I am well armed and ready to get down with my bad self.
We arrive at the crowded hotel on 45th and she clasps my hand and thanks me so profusely I feel a wee bit bad I am still looking over my my shoulder (and hers) for the would-be murderer. she tells me her name is Angelo and blesses me many times over and I skedaddle, still in one piece though I am now huffing it to get to work on time.
Hopefully Angela's son is as triumphant as Sigourney Weaver in defeating the aliens that lay within and they all get to the airport on time to harrass anopther unsuspecting (cue stupid) good soul into helping them find their Miami gate and thus missing their own plane to Timbuktu.
Merry Frickin Christmas.
