When I Realized I Wasn't Tough Enough for NYC - Pt. 1

I'm watching the Sandy aftermath on television this morning and I am thinking about when I lived in New York City.  New Yorkers are some of the toughest people I know and this Sandy thing isn't going to be a problem for many of them.  They'll come through just fine, you know why?  Because every day life in New York City is tough.



Over the years I had put up with all the inconveniences of living in a such an old, expensive city.  I paid a small fortune to live in a dusty pre-war apartment a block from a very active fire station.   Because my apartment didn't have air conditioning, I worked up a sweat most mornings just taking a shower and blow drying my hair.  It was during my New York years that I started experimenting with letting my naturally curly hair go curly, because there was no beating it.  I put up with all of this so that I could have interesting (life sucking) jobs and so that I could be near the (future) Hubs.   I had one of the worst days of my entire life when I lived there and it was just during a normal rain storm.  My day was so shitty that I decided right then and there that I was not cut out for New York City and it was time to throw in the towel.





It was fall and it started raining around lunch time that day.  I knew the commute that night would be a nightmare (even though the subway is underground rain always throws it for a loop) so I decided I'd stay late and let it thin out a bit.  I worked for several hours that night and finally decided it was time to head home.  The rain had not let up at all.  It was falling in sheets and the gutters were a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume.  The subway station was just across the street from my building so I ran for it.  When I got to the stairs to the station, a couple inches of water was running down the stairs like a waterfall.  People were slipping and sliding.  I hadn't worn my tennis shoes that day but I was wearing flats.  I started down the stairs slowly, because I am a klutz.  About half way down I thought, Oh this isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I let go of the railing.  BOOM!  I fell right on my ass and bounced down several stairs.  Yuck!  I was sitting in cold, greasy water that was running off the streets.  Fast food wrappers and empty coffee cups were floating past me.  I heard my train approaching the platform, so I grabbed my bag and moved as quickly as I dared through the rapids.



I managed to get to the train before it left and I was pleased to find it mostly empty.  At rush hour I would never get a seat, but that night I had a whole row to myself.  I sat down and tried not think about my cold, wet underwear sticking to me or if there was a cigarette butt caught in my slip.  I had a twenty minute train ride and I just wanted to calm down.



Food has always made me feel better, so immediately my mind went to "What are we having for dinner?"  I don't know what it is, but there is something about a cold and rainy night that always makes me want grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.  I think my mom must have made that for me a lot on rainy days when I was a kid, because I am hard-wired for that stuff when the rain starts falling.



I was so busy dreaming of a hot shower and a grilled cheese sandwich (not together, of course!) that I didn't notice the man who came through from the other train car.  He stopped right in front of me and held onto the bar over my head.  At first I didn't think anything of it.  If you ride the subway in New York City you have no personal space.  Everyone is in your face.  It didn't seem unusual until I noticed that the car was still pretty empty and he could have gone anywhere.  Why was he standing in front of me??  I looked up and he was grinning at me and doing pelvic thrusts towards my face.  I looked at his nether regions and saw the tiniest, pinkest, wrinkliest penis I've ever seen sticking out of his fly.



Yup.  The guy was sticking his penis in my face.  I've just fallen down the disgusting stairs of a subway station and sat in a slush of trash, rat droppings and probably Ebola and now this guy is sticking his penis in my face??  What am I supposed to do with that?  I did what you'd expect.  I went nuts.  "Are you fucking kidding me with that shit?"  I yelled at him.  "Get the fuck out of my face, man!"  I shoved past him and moved to another seat while everyone else on the train gave us both some space.  In their defense it was hard to tell which of us was the crazy one.  He got off at the next stop to go wave his tiny penis in someone else's face and left me alone.



Now I really wanted my grilled cheese sandwich!  As we got closer to my stop I realized that I did not have the necessary ingredients to make a grilled cheese sandwich at my apartment.  I didn't have the most important ingredient:  BREAD.



I was going to have to venture to the "disgusting grocery store."  The disgusting grocery store was a block from my apartment, but I never shopped there.  It was so dirty that I was afraid to buy produce there.  I once got expired milk from there.  The meat always had a green tinge to it.  This store was for emergencies only.  Well, this was an emergency, I thought.  There was no way I was going to walk further in this deluge just to get a loaf of bread.  How bad could the bread be? I wondered.  They can't screw that up, right . . . ?



Come back tomorrow and find out how the disgusting grocery store can most certainly screw up a loaf of bread.