You know? I was having a pretty good morning today. And that’s rare for me; I’m the type the wanders out of my bedroom in a stupor each day and am pretty light-hearted—mirthful, even—until one tiny thing doesn’t go my way. Then, I become a homicidal, coffee-fiending maniac. And by ‘tiny thing,’ I mean tiny. My leg being tangled in the blankets (does this ever happen to you, where your legs are so enrobed in the blankies that you begin to wonder if you will ever be able to extricate them and will, in fact, end up wearing them to work and trying to pass it off as an ode to, say, the toga?) will illicit a hearty “Goddammit.” Knocking my little can of pomade off the bathroom counter will illicit an exasperated “Son of a whore.” But the king—the absolute crème de la crème, the coup de gras (why are these expressions for the ultimate always French? Someone google/wikipedia it and email me) is when I extract the shampoo bottle from the shower rack and it inevitably takes all the other bottles with it, sending them crashing to the floor. This inspires a torrential tirade of profanity that would make any of you—yes, even you—blush and makes Jesus—whose name is nearly always slandered in these not-even-fit-for-latenight-HBO soliloquies—weep for my soul.
But today, actually, I was having a good morning. I’m a bit under the weather these days, and yesterday was seriously contemplating the possibility that I might, in fact, die. I began drafting a will at my desk, which I then handed to my office-mate, croaking through my fever “Please…make sure...this is…executed…properly…farewell, my liege…farewell…” Seriously, when I got home last night, I called my mother, who unexpectedly wasn’t home—where the hell was she, by the way? All the woman does is read Rachael Ray cookbooks and watch Lifetime. Wtf?—and bellowed into her answering machine “Don’t you DARE bury me in some burnt out Scottsdale cemetery between some bullshi* strip mall and a McMansion development called something idiotically faux-Iberian like "Carnitas Vista." You hear me old lady? DO YOU HEAR ME?!”
But last night, I popped my former boss’s stash of Temazepam (a gift from our last business trip—I don’t sleep well in hotels) like candy and slept for nigh on ten hours. So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning feeling like one mill-i-on dollars. Nay, comparatively speaking, one billion. Granted, I woke up a bit later than I should have, but miraculously somehow managed to be ready and out the door a full 10 minutes faster than normal. And, I had washed my hair the night before, and discovered that this makes it look even better than not washing it at all, as usually, particularly in the awkward stage of growing out that it is currently in, my hair will do one thing and one thing only and that thing is called “whatever the hell it wants.” Because I’m ill, I gave myself a sartorial pass today and put on my comfortable jeans, a shirt that’s a size too big, and my favorite hoodie, which rendered me wonderfully comfortable and yet, somehow, still kind of attractive. Then, I exited my building to find that the heatwave—it’s seriously been 65 degrees 2 days in a row—we’ve been under seems to have broken. Nothing irritates me quite so much as unseasonable temperatures. It’s fuc*ing January. I feel like it was only an hour ago that the third world 95 degree heat stopped. Give a brotha a minute and stay below 45 until, say, April please.
And so, twas with a joyful heart that I walked to the subway, comfy clothes caressing my body in a manner almost liscentious, flaxen hair flying in the breeze behind me. I even had a pleasant encounter with a fellow Astorian upon entering the subway, wherein we chatted and chuckled about how frustrating and confusing the daily ritual of trying to figure out which waiting train will leave first. “Tis such an odyssey, isn’t it?” she said with a laugh. “Quite, quite,” I replied with a titter.
You know, there’s a line in the 2000 film ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary,” adapted from the Helen Fielding book of the same name, where Bridget says “As soon as one part of your life is going exactly as planned, another part falls spectacularly to pieces.” And that, of course, is your cue to enter, Fat Girl With Ginormous Coat.
Fat Girl With Ginormous Coat
Before we move on to issues subway-centric, we first need to briefly discuss the coat in question: floor-length, woolen, and trimmed—both cuffs and collar—with fur. And not just a bit of fur. A lot of fur. Thick, voluminous, billowing fur. It was as if you were wearing a ruff collar, and when you opened the coat to scratch under your breasts (eew, by the way) I half expected you to be wearing a suit of motley up under there and produce a lute from--an inside pocket? underneath your bosom? somewhere—and begin strumming a bawdy ballad. If you were, say, eight feet taller and a black man and this were the 1970’s, I would assume you were a very successful pimp. You are already a big girl, and honey, that coat is doing you NONE favors. Also, your shoes are ugly.
But that is all beside the point. The point is that you seem to be very fond of turning yourself into some sort of barricade. When the 6 train arrived (in short order for once—again, this really was a good morning before you happened along!), you positioned yourself not to the side of the doors, in order to let people off the train first, as per etiquette, but, rather, directly in front of the doors. In fact, you centered yourself –I fuc*ing watched you do it—on the crack where the two doors meet. Yes you did, don’t deny it. You centered yourself on that shi*.
Now, as we discussed, you are a thundering, galumphing huffalump. Which is fine. Many are. And big can be beautiful (and you are, by the way, crass underboob scratching notwithstanding). But you should be aware that not even a wee, 5 foot 40 lb. size 0 pixie—say, a Sarah Jessica Parker or-be still my heart-a Madonna—has any business positioning herself directly in front of and certainly—God have mercy on your soul—centering herself on a pair of subway doors. Get your ass out of the ever-loving way.
But here’s the kicker, FGWGC: not only did you position yourself in front of and center yourself on (I can’t stress this enough) the doors, you also didn’t budge an inch when those exiting the train struggled to navigate around you. For God’s sake, that one woman, sized not unlike the aforementioned teeny-tiny icons—beloved, wondrous, splendiferous icons—got caught in the crossfire of the two streaming hordes trying to squeeze around either side of you and just stood there, staring blankly, starting to panic, having no idea how to circumnavigate the madness, no doubt wondering if she was going to have to climb over you in the manner of that wooden wall thing that military recruits have to scale during basic training.
And then—and then—FGWGC, once the melee had died down, you entered the train and instead of going down the aisle like you’re supposed to in order to get the ever-loving hell out of the way, you stood stock still in front of the doors on the inside of the train too, hugging the bar in the middle of the, shall we say, vestibule like it was a stripper pole and you was fixin’ to put on a show! This resulted in a good five feet of empty space behind you—space that could have been filled with people who were instead forced to huddle altogether too closely. Seriously, it was like Studio 54 up in there, except without the nudity, the cocaine, the dance floor sex (come on, we’ve all seen the footage from VH1’s “Behind the Music: Studio 54”), the music, the celebrities and, most importantly, the fun (though there was a woman who resembled Jerry Hall). You seriously dammed up the entire operation.
Now, I was prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. “Perhaps she’s getting off at 51st,” I thought, “and wants to remain closer to the door.” Sort of understandable, that. I mean, we’ve all gotten ourselves into one of those pickles, where you’ve been conscientious enough to move into the middle of the train to make room, and then your stop comes, and you have 47 people to meander around, and by the time you actually make it to the door, it either shuts on you or, worst of all, before you even make it there.
But you know why that happens, FGWGC? It happens, my zaftig friend, BECAUSE OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU, people who have no reason but the fact that they’re—what, stupid? Retarded? Lulled into a stupor by some sort of mind-numbing chemical the unnecessary amounts of synthetic fur on their coat collars are emitting? who knows—for planting themselves directly in front of the only means of ingress and egress. You did this from 59th and Lex until at least 33rd and Park—even after the melodrama that ensued at Grand Central, which was so harrowing I can’t even talk about it now because I’m still too upset—with not an ounce of contrition.
You are an as*hole, a great trolloping, trundling, trashcan-shaped as*hole, and I hate you.
Incredibly Tall Hispanic Man Stepping on My Feet
Look, Incredibly Tall Hispanic Man Stepping on My Feet, I know that this morning’s train was particularly jerky, and you were forced to stand the entire way, and being as tall as you are, God only knows where your center of gravity is, and I imagine it all made for you the act of standing up on a rollicking train even more difficult than the average bear. And, granted, in comparison to the tomfoolery of FGWGC, your offenses are paltry at most.
But seriously? Exactly how many times do you need to step on my feet before you realize that they are there and not going anywhere? I mean, there’s nowhere else for me to put them except on the floor. They are not detachable. I do not have the power to make them disappear with some sort of instrument of magic, like a wand or similar. We all step on peoples’ feet on the subway at one time or another—hell, I do it practically everyday. There’s a lot to negotiate on crowded subway trains, and you often can’t see the floor to know where you’re stepping. It happens. But the rest of us seem to learn from the experience—“Hmm…I moved my foot 3 millimeters to the left last time and stepped on that small child’s head and now she appears to be either dead or hopefully just paralyzed…so perhaps this time I’ll try moving the other foot 3 millimeters to the right and see if that works better.”
But not you. You just kept stepping on me over and over and over again, as if in hopes that this time, my foot will have vaporized and no longer be in the way. I demand an explanation. This really isn’t that hard.
As retribution, should I ever see you again I will tackle you to the ground and kick you square in the face while your mother watches. Why? Because these boots are Kenneth Cole, and I will be goddamned if I’ll allow you to desecrate them. DON’T FUC* WITH MY SHOES, ITHMSOMF. HAVE I MADE MYSELF PERFECTLY CLEAR?
“Excuse Me I Need to Get Off the Train Please” Guy
Oh really? Really. Seriously? Honestly? No, for real? Really? Seriously. Honestly. Seriously?
You need to get off the train? You’re kidding, right?
Well boy is there egg on my face! When I got up and started shuffling toward the train exit behind the other throng of people shuffling toward the train exit, I thought we were just going for an early morning stroll down the aisle of the downtown 6! I thought it was kind of like those middle-aged suburban women who meet up at the mall in the morning and go power-walking! I didn’t realize it was for the purpose of getting off the train! Gosh, I feel so silly! To think, that whole time, there I and everyone else was, moving toward the exit, just trying to do our part to overturn the American obesity epidemic, when you, EMINTGOTTPG, were trapped behind us trying to actually get off the train! God, I’m so glad you spoke up! Who knows what would have happened otherwise! Gosh, ya know, this is something that we will all look back on someday and just laugh and laugh!
Except for the part where I bashed you in the face with a bottle because you’re an as*hole. That part will probably only be funny to me.
interesting point, your article is great!! well done!!
Posted by: http://www.temazepam.biz | September 14, 2011 at 05:59 PM