On Teabags and Shot Glasses
Okay, so. Yeah.
So me and Chris were on the subway and I was all in my own little world as usual and then, AND THEN I noticed this woman is reading a story to her kid, this little precious munchkin with big blue eyes, and they’re having this little Hallmark moment. It was very cute and I was listening to it myself and thinking about how my parents used to read to me, and I was all warm and fuzzy, and then this woman gets on the train. Three things stand out about her immediately- the big blonde ponytail (on an older lady, this is weird, I’m sure you understand), her all-pink ensemble (looked like Mary Kay threw up on her but I DID like her shoes) and her purse, which was one of those large totes that came out back when initials and monograms were popular. It was pink on pink, with a large letter T on the side. So Chris and I decided to refer to her as Miss Teabag. Snerk!
So Miss Teabag is saying something to me about the woman and her child and I mishear her, I suppose, and I think she’s making some sort of comment about the noise level in the car, like “I wonder how the little boy can hear her” or something like that and I say “well, I can hear her fine and I’m over here”.
She looks at me, pissed off and blase’; “Well GOOD.”
I immediately turn my head and bite my lip and look back at the woman and her kid, and I watch them, so happy. Miss Teabag had been complaining to the whipped old bastard she was with that the woman was BEING LOUD, not that it was too loud for the boy to hear.
I have never met such sad, soulless people as I have here in New York. I have never met such selfish, wasted lives. I do not mean in any way that all new yorkers are like that AT ALL but sometimes I meet these people who blow me away. They feel this entitlement to God knows what for whatever reason…I don’t get it. I want to go home to where my mama loves me and would never have looked at me like I was some sort of pest like these people treat their children. That is maddening. Infuriating.
On another note entirely, my life since Wednesday has been delightful, as Chris and I are having tons of fun and seeing sights. I love being around him. We have fun being snotty punks together, sitting on park benches and judging whether people are from New York or not. We sat there like “Yes, No, No, Not with that hat, Yes, Yes.” And I think that if someone had been standing and observing it they would had have thought us to be quite snotty. But that’s fine. I need someone to be snotty with. He bought me a shotglass from Atlanta during what ended up being The World’s Longest Layover (TM), red glass with “I heart Atlanta” on it. I told him something about David Sedaris’s dad calling it Hotlanta G-A and it’s stuck. Yeah, like we needed another joke. Now I’m listening to him sing along with my iPod in his best Bryan Adams voice. And it’s absolutely terrible. Awful. I love him so much.
C’est tout, kids. Home to Texas in a week, bitches.
August 2nd, 2005 at 8:23 am
“Soulless”? That’s an interesting judgement call… I’d venture to say there are rude people everywhere, but since New York has such an enormous population it seems like more than anyplace else… though proportion-wise it’s probably the same to say, Austin.
August 2nd, 2005 at 2:18 pm
I would have to agree it’s probably a rudeness-per-capita thing, but it’s like…the nice people here are really nice but the rude ones are completely over the top- and though it may seem like a stretch I assure you Texas is very, very different.
August 3rd, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Guess I get a little upset when someone calls the people of my home “soulless”… The busy, crowded conditions of New York, one of the biggest cities in the world, certainly contribute to the harried quality of some people here. Give ‘em the benefit of the doubt.
August 3rd, 2005 at 11:06 pm
Understandable, entirely. I never meant for the post to come across as a blanket statement at all. I appreciate you keeping me in check, Alanna. Seriously.