Raja: Spawn of Satan / Treasured Family Jewel

"Open the door, peon, or I'll fuck up your dreams." 

  

Pssssss


Hmmm. That feels misty. How odd.


Pssssss pssss


That definitely feels wet, like a spray bottle...


PSSSSSS


What is that awful smell...and...why is my face wet?


PSS--


WHY IS THE CAT'S ASS ON MY FACE?...


OH DEAR GOD, THE CAT IS PISSING ON MY FACE! FUUUUUUUUUUUU---


I launched out of my bed and was on my feet faster than Elizabeth Montgomery on "Bewitched" could blink, wink, or do that strange nose waggle she was so famous for.

--UUUUCK!

My chest heaved and I choked through the asphyxiating stench of that which was presently dripping from my face. Cat urine is most admirable in its potency. The noxious fumes of amonia are enough to render a gag out of the manliest of men and, in my case, the badassedliest (Yes, it's a word...No, don't bother researching it...No--it-- well, you're not going to find it in any dictionary other than the Dictionary of Ruthlessisms) of women.


Two o'clock in the morning, pajamas ruffled, hair a mess, face sheening with cat piss, I stood there stupidly, gaping at Raja, my  family's cat, in disbelief. She remained seated, back awkwardly hunched, ass firmly pressed into my pillow, peering pointedly over her shoulder at me as she continued to finish the deed she had so audaciously started. I'm not a violent person, but images of her being thrown through the window momentarily flashed through my mind before I abruptly scooped her up and gently tossed her out the front door.


I suppose it was partially my fault. That night I had repeatedly ignored her urgent meows in my ear and the cold wet-nosed nudges to my face, favoring sleep over responding to her needs. Raja has trained us to let her in and out of the house at will. Though we've put one in the basement of my parents' house, she does not use a litter box. In her estimation, the world is her litter box and we are to open the door to let her out into her domain at her will, even if that will is executed at 2am.


She is a royal bitch, but she possesses this uncanny ability to bewitch all of us into believing she's the most magnificent creature to ever grace our presence. I've never seen anyone or anything reduce my father--my no-nonsense, stoic, rigid, masculine father--to a driveling, baby-talking feline fan quite like Raja does. She has everyone in the house wrapped around her de-clawed little paw-finger and I shamefully admit that even I am not invincible to her black magic charms...

• What's that sound I hear at 1am? Oh, Raja's scratching on the screened window to be let in? Be there in a jiffy, Your Highness!

• This water is not to your liking? Allow me to refresh the--Oh, yes, if that's what you prefer, go ahead and knock that glass of water over and drink out of the puddle while I sweep up the shards of glass from the kitchen floor.

• Royal cats don't like toddlers now? Toddlers are so teetery anyway. Quick! Everyone! Toddlers are no longer fashionable. Please leave them at the door.

Like any benevolent ruler, she occasionally descends from her lofty throne to engage in play time with her subjects and, even more occasionally, flop dramatically on her back, gracing those present with an adorable look from between her paws, and allowing one person the divine opportunity of running their fingers through the massive bur-twined tufts of dread-locked fur on her belly. Careful; pet too long and she'll nip at your fingers to keep you in line. Yet, the whole lot of us gather around, ooo'ing and aaaah'ing like a bunch of giant oafs. She is our family's first "real" pet, which makes her, in our collective estimation, the most captivating creature in the entire world. She is very aware of our ignorance and frequently takes advantage.

 Her supreme reign extends to the entire block and neighboring streets. Neighborhood cats shrink back into their homes when Raja is outside. In fact, I'm quite positive I saw one cat bite itself as an act of self-flagellation for not exiting the area quickly enough. Entire colonies of moles have been exterminated from my parents' front yard, rodent by squirming rodent at a time, all at the clawless paws of Raja The Regal. She charitably leaves their bloody, quivering carcasses next to our shoes in a manner that suggests we are to consider them gifts, but I suspect she can't be bothered to eat something as unsavory as a common mouse.


She's so royally unbending that it took 3 operations to successfully remove ALL of her front claws as she had rebelliously retracted them so deeply before surgery that the vets didn't "get" all of them. And while I whole-heartedly do not support nor endorse the de-clawing of a cat (my own cats still have theirs), I shudder to think what would become of a few of the neighborhood cats, should Raja have had full use of her cutlery. One neighborhood cat was sent to the animal hospital more than once, due to complications from battle wounds inflicted by Her Clawless Majesty.

After overcoming the initial shock of the golden shower my cat had just given me, I gathered my wits, took a very long real shower that exhausted nearly a whole bar of soap, changed the bedsheets, and--at last-- finally snuggled back under the covers...

"MEW." scratch scratch scratch "MEW." scratch scratch scratch

For fifteen minutes I successfully ignored her pawing at the screen window downstairs, a heavy chip on my shoulder.

But just as I was drifting off into dreamland, my senses were suddenly attacked rapid-fire by images of cat asses, phantom fur tickles on my face, the faint smell of amonia. Feline chuckles rang in my ears. Raja was like Freddy Kreuger, slipping into my dreams, twisting them into a horrific nightmare. Again, I launched out of the bed, rousing myself to wakefulness, thankful that I wasn't actually experiencing a golden shower encore, but breathing no easier, nonetheless. For fear that she might work the same spell on my sleep, I ran downstairs and opened the door to let her back inside.

She slept on my chest until morning. I lied there subserviently, cat napping....

One eye open.

If I'm 35, You're Pushing 50, Jerk.

"How old are you?"

Here we go.

The age question comes up every time I go out. Somehow the conversation is always steered toward the topic of age and it never fails to leave me feeling both ancient and indignant, but for whatever stupid masochistic reason, I walk right into the trap and always find myself answering with another question:

"How old do you think I am?"

A long time ago I was told for the very first of many times that my maturity makes me seem ten years older. Back then, I accepted it as a compliment. After all, I was underage then and it meant that my odds were that much better of passing under bartenders' radars. Today, it's a different story. Especially because I know my actual level of maturity is easily trumped by 15-year-old boys whose comical reserve, mind you, contains only farting-on-command maneuvers and "that's what she said" jokes.

Giving away my age isn't necessarily a problem with me. The only time I'm not comfortable doing so is when I'm in the city. Manhattan, in particular, is teaming with single, childless 20 and 30-somethings who like to fake-choke on their martinis and clutch their hearts when they find out I'm a 26-year-old married mother of one.

"But you're a baaaaby!" they exclaim. Then...

"Wait, you're from the Midwest, aren't you?"

When I confirm this, they assume a smug expression that immediately indicates their underlying feelings of superiority. I've instantly become to them a typical country bumpkin who did what other country bumpkins do: marry early, birth a few younguns, raise goats...but I had clearly made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up in a city that's far too sophisticated for my britches.

"God, it must be next to impossible to raise a kid here. I couldn't even imagine," they say, banishing the horrid thought with a dismissive wave of the hand, "You must not have ANY time for fun at all."

I swallow back a gag, smile, and quietly regale them with a few of the finer points I've experienced of motherhood and marriage, hoping the happiness in my voice and the serenity in my face will make them want to run home and hang themselves with their office-dress-code-safe Ralph Lauren neckties, or at least weep into their empty Coach purses and wonder why they still can't snag a man who won't cheat on them with every malnourished 21 year old model-wannabe who struts past.*

Then, there are the people who take it upon themselves to follow up the "How old are you?" question with,

"Wait. Don't tell me. I'm REALLY good at guessing."

They suck at guessing. People suck harder at guessing my age than they do when trying to get to the chocolately fucking center of a Tootsie Pop.

"But, no, I'd rather you didn--"

"Thirtyyyyyyy.....four!" they say with narrowed eyes, naively smiling like happy idiots into my stormy expression.

When I don't respond...

"Thirty-three? Wait. Thirty-five?"

Keep digging that hole...

"No, I've got it, Thirty-two. You're thirty-two, aren't you?"

Asshats thinking they're being generous = far from cute.

Try six years younger, dick.

Fed up with having my age constantly over-estimated, my stock response is now:

"Wrong. I am 51 years old, sweetie, so is Madonna, and we're both old enough to be your mother."

The responses I get tend to vary. From dropped jaws, to applause, I've seen it all.

Last night, the response was: "Wow. Um, are you joking? I can't really tell."

To which I should have replied, "I'm 26 years old and you're officially an overgrown fucktard."

Instead, because I'm a lady with a fucking unlimited supply of class, I said simply, "I'm 26, but it's okay, people in their late 40's, like you, usually start losing their grasp on complicated things like age..."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*I should clarify that I see and understand the benefits of the single life and waiting to settle down, waiting until later to have kids. No one should box themselves into any pre-packaged idea of happiness. The Happiness Train just happened to roll into town early for me in the form of Andrew and, because of my innate gangstatude, I chose to board before the train left the station. I don't look back because I don't need to. It was the right move.

My One-Fingered Salute To The Dude Who Invented Car Alarms

I'd like to personally thank the genius who invented car alarms. If I ever had the opportunity to meet this person, I imagine the conversation would go a little something like this:


Inventor: (probably wearing a power suit and $1000 cuff links. Jerk.) "Hello. Why, yes, I am the incredibly wealthy genius who inv--"
Me: *SMACK!*
Inventor: ...
Me: "WHY, YES, I DID JUST MAPLE-LEAF YOUR FUCKIN' FOREHEAD, SON!"


Then I strut away like John Travolta on Saturday Night Fever.


Earlier this week, I had the immense pleasure of listening to a car alarm go off right outside my window for fifteen minutes at 10:30pm. A record total for a single vehicle around here. It seems my block is the designated parking zone for delicate mid-sized sedans and pansy sports utility vehicles whose security alarms sound at the slightest change in environment, be it a 2 degree temperature drop or any gust of wind above 5mph. At least five alarms go off every night without fail. Though, most of them go off on the street at the front of the apartment, a few go off right outside Brooklyn's bedroom window.


In this instance, I had finally gotten B down for bed. She was being particularly resistant to being put to bed, and because she's the pants-wearing CEO of this family, I spent the remainder of the evening chasing her around the apartment and coercing her into sitting on my lap with bottles and promises to read her "Happy Baby Animals" book 10 times back-to-back. At long last, she rubbed her eyes and gave herself away. That was my cue to tuck her in, so without a moment's hesitation I did just that and slipped quietly out of her door.


Ahhhh, sweet silence.


I tiptoe'd to the kitchen and fixed myself an intricate, gourmet dinner (i.e. PB&J and a Pabst, because I'm cultured like that). Cracked open the beer, plopped my springy, youthful, non-cellulite-ridden ass on the couch (what?) and prepared to enjoy the fuck out of the serenity that had settled up in this joint. In the very moment that I slid my teeth into that sandwich, a car alarm sounded in the grocery store parking lot right outside the windows to the living room and Brooklyn's bedroom. No amount of Jiffy-crunchy-peanut-butter-chewing could muffle the sound that pierced through the walls and filled the apartment. Good lord, it was loud. I reluctanly paused my delicious nomming to silently will the car alarm to stop, waiting for the owners to find the panic button on their keychain. Find it... Find it... Find it! My ears turned like a cat's, twitching back and forth between the window and Brooklyn's bedroom. Frozen in a half-standing crouch with my Pabst in my right hand and my plate in my left, I was prepared to go full Rambo mode on someone's windshield if that alarm woke my sleeping child.


I stayed in my disgruntled hillbilly stance for a full five minutes before turning to the window to get a visual on the idiocy below. The urgency of the alarm was reminiscent of a break-in at Fort Knox. I scanned the line-up of cars, expecting to see a Bentley or a Benz or, at the very least, a souped up car, but what my eyes landed on was far from expected. The perpetrator: a 1997-ish two-door Toyota Tercel in "rust," as in actual rust. Why anyone wants to protect that tetanus hazzard on wheels with any kind of alarm is beyond me, but they apparently treasured it enough to outfit it with the loudest alarm on earth.


For ten minutes longer I waited, glaring out the window, grinding my teeth, pondering over the "boy who cried wolf" phenomenon that the car alarm tends to produce. Who really takes these things seriously anymore? They're so touchy that everyone just assumes they're all triggered by accident. Couldn't there be a better system for this? Like wooden fists situated in random unpredictable areas (like doorside crotch-level) and pop out unexpectedly when the glass on a window has been fully broken?


A grocery store security guard walked over slowly and took down the plate number before sidling back in to the store where he probably made an announcement over the intercom that someone's prized possession was acting, er, possessed. Only momentarily was my ire softened when I spotted another shopper approaching his car, which was parked next to the Tercel. He was glancing around nervously as he loaded groceries into his trunk. Clearly paranoid that everyone must think he's to blame, he unloaded his cart and shot out of the parking lot like water out of a deep-fryer.*


At last, a couple in their late 40's came teetering out of the automatic doors and I knew instantly that the Tercel was theirs. They hobbled quickly toward the car, the man briefly pausing to pull up his greasy sweatpants and throw a case of Mountain Dew in the trunk while the woman rooted around in her enormous purse for what felt like eons before pulling out a plump fist full of keys and triumphantly waggling them in the man's face.


Push the alarm button or, so help me, I will burst through my brick wall like the juiced-up love child of Snooki's assaulter and PopEye and, by brute roid-rage force, I will squeeze your tin can car into a diamond, which I will then grind up with my teeth and spit on the ground at your feet.


BLIP. BLIP.


Silence.


I exhaled a deep sigh of relief. Thank. You. Jesu--


BLIP. BLIP-BLIP. WWWWWWWWEEEEEEE--OOOOOOO-WEEEEEE-OOOOO...


At this point, I'm positive a few blood vessels burst in my forehead and I may or may not have turned green like the Incredible Hulk.


BLIP. BLIP.


And it was over for real this time.


The alarm, in it's 15 minutes of splendor, never did wake up Brooklyn, but it did awake in me a beast of rabid hatred that can only be tamed by the satisfaction of smacking the inventor in the forehead with my open hand and/or all car alarms being outlawed and amassed in a pile and melted down into something more productive, like sound-proofing for my walls...or plastic miniature figurines of myself for my own vanity and enjoyment.


I suppose this is the end, for now. Until next time, car alarms.


And, until we meet in person, Sir Douche, Inventor of Car Alarms--here's my one-fingered salute to you...
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*Dumping water into a deep-fryer is explosive. Trust. Try it, pal, and you risk looking like Freddy Krueger's uglier twin brother.

A Bite of Wisdom From the Big Apple

~Train station bodega owners have terrible grasps of subway geography...until you buy a soda from them. Fuckers...~

If The Neighbor Complains, Catch Him With His Pants Down. Problem Solved.

As both luck and irony would have it, we have become the "upstairs neighbors."

Andrew, Brooklyn and I hadn't occupied our new Jersey City apartment for three days before there was a knock on our door. Our sitter, Gina, was home with Brooklyn at the time and took a message through the cracked door for us.

"The neighbor downstairs came up today and asked that we keep it down up here," she informed me when I arrived home that evening. "He said it's too loud up here and he can't concentrate."

My stomach dropped. I was surprised...and a little angry.

"What does he mean, 'keep it down?'" I asked. "We're the quietest tenants ever."

"Apparently he can hear us up here every time we move. He complained about Brooklyn walking around up here, saying it was too loud and if we could keep her from running around when he's sleeping that would be preferable. I just told him I'd pass on the message to you."

 Great. I envisioned the next year being spent in misery as we tiptoe around in fleece socks and speak only in whispers....

  

    "Brooklyn, put down your blocks and get in your new padded cage now, the charming pitter-patter of your tiny feet is making too much noise for the downstairs neighbor to bear as he gets his beauty sleep until 4pm. Oh, hi visitors, I need to ask you to remove your shoes and wear these slippers and if you could keep your voice at a steady 30 decibels or lower, that'd be great, thanks. Also, if you need to fart, cough, or sneeze, please do so into this designated noise-dampening pillow."

  

I stewed for the next couple of hours. We weren't even close to being noisy up here...most certainly not like our old upstairs neighbors (see the clog dancers entry below). Hell, we weren't even a quarter as noisy as they were. And as loud as those neighbors were, I never dared tell them to keep their kids quiet. You simply don't put a cap on how much noise is appropriate for a family with young kids, unless you have proof that they're deliberately trying to be loud and make you miserable...or jumping off of chairs and clog dancing past midnight.

When Andrew arrived home from work later that evening, I filled him in on the news, being careful to keep my voice low. If Brooklyn walking through the apartment was too loud for this guy to handle, who knew if he could hear our conversations. Andrew was not so careful.

"Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" he blasted. "Brooklyn is one year old! One! What are we supposed to do? Lock her in a cage and yell at her every time she drops a toy?"

"Keep your voice down, Andrew," I scolded, "I don't want to start anything with this guy. A bad neighbor can make our lives miserable. Promise me if you see him, you'll be polite."

Grudgingly, he agreed.

It turns out he would have to practice his politeness skills a little sooner than either of us expected. At 7am the following morning, there was a knock on our door. Andrew, who had been up for no more than 5 minutes with Brooklyn, sidled up to the door wearing only his underwear. I hadn't been able to pull myself out of bed yet, so I can only imagine the groggy death stare Andrew probably had on his face when opening the door. I heard him utter a few words before shutting the door.

"Who was that?" I called from my pillow.

"Who do you think?"

"Ugh. What now?"

"He's complaining about Brooklyn running around up here. He said it's too early for all the noise and asked if we could keep it down, especially in the mornings."

My stomach sank again. Brooklyn's feet hadn't touched the floor for more than a few minutes and he was at our door lickety-split, ready to pounce.

"What'd you say to him?" ("Were you polite?" my tone implied.)

"Not much. I just said that she's a baby and it's hard to tell her anything, but we'd do our best."

Relieved that Andrew hadn't unleashed his temper on the guy, I figured we could at least make more effort on our part to perhaps keep her hard toys out of reach for the first hour of the morning and distract her with books and breakfast to keep the running around to a minimum. It was annoying to feel like every move was being amplified, but having just escaped noisy lower-floor living, I understood.

That is, until I spoke with the landlord later that day.

I had stayed home for part of that day for a cable appointment. The cable guy needed access to the lines in the basement, so I had to call Brian, our landlord, to figure out where those were. He verified their location and just as I was getting ready to hang up, Brian said,

"Oh, by the way..."

Somehow, I knew what he was going to say and had to quickly muffle an involuntary snort.

"I wasn't even going to mention this to you because it's really not a big deal and it's something he can talk to you about himself, but your neighbor downstairs just called and said something about it being really noisy up there. Now, I'm sure you guys are fine. Maybe he's just hearing your little girl. I have my own kids and I know there's not much you can do about them making noise, but I just thought you might like to know that he contacted me about it, in case he hasn't said anything to you yet. He's a really nice guy, though. Maybe you can go down and talk to him."

My jaw clenched. I thanked Brian through gritted teeth and got off the phone. I was livid. It was not easy to hear this after I'd spent all morning meticulously combing the floors for Brooklyn's hard toys and keeping her occupied with quieter activities. This was the third time in less than 24 hours I had been informed of the downstairs douche's supersonic hearing and my penchant for politeness was dangerously frayed. I didn't want to tell Andrew. He is far less concerned about politeness than I am when someone angers him and won't think twice about telling that person off. Regardless, he heard the strain in my voice when I spoke to him on the phone later that day and he pulled it out of me.

Later that night, I rang the intercom buzzer to be let in the door since I had left my keys with Gina. Andrew answered.

"Yeah?" Despite static crackling in the intercom, his menacing tone could not be disguised.

"Honey, it's me. Let me up."

I dragged my feet heading upstairs, speeding up only as I passed apartment 2, Douchebag Habitat. I already knew what news was waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

"The asshole came again."

"Hello to you, too." I said kissing Andrew as I squeezed past him through the front door.

"I wasn't home for one minute and I knew, I just KNEW he was going to come up! This is his fourth fucking visit. Unbelievable." He was launching into a full blown tirade.

I sighed.

"What'd you say to him?"

"Well, I swung open the damn door so he could see Brooklyn and told him to go ahead and try telling a one-year-old to be quiet. He kept saying some bullshit about how he deserves to live in a noise-free environment. I told him we'd be happy to trade apartments if he'd like to fund the move. He just turned on his heel and stormed back downstairs."

I had a feeling I'd eventually be on damage-control, but despite that expectation I was no more ready to face the beast. I was pissed, too, but knew that if I didn't smooth out the situation now, it would only get worse. Andrew may not have regretted his approach, but that didn't mean it didn't bother him to be at odds with a neighbor, so when I told him I was headed down to talk to the guy he didn't argue; he looked slightly relieved. I took five minutes to calm my nerves as much as possible and then ventured down the stairs. I knocked.

There was some frantic shuffling from somewhere deep in the apartment and then the sound of floor boards slowly creaking as he quite obviously was creeping up to the door to sneak a look through the peep hole. I did my best to look as nonthreatening as possible, standing there hands folded behind my back, friendly smile playing lightly on the corners of my mouth, eyes focused away from the peep hole. La la la, harmless neighbor here, just stopping by to blow some sunshine up your ass. 

 As I waited, I tried to imagine what he must look like and could only conjure up images of a neurotic balding older European man-child who's wardrobe consisted exclusively of Burberry slippers and turtle necks that he wore religiously to hide his weak chin. I could just picture him listening to Bach on vinyl and waving his finger in exaggerated conductor-like motions, eyes closed, his grotesque shiny head swaying in time with the symphonies...

The door cracked open slightly, just enough for a head to poke through. After a small pause, the neighbor's face appeared from behind the door.

"Yes?" he asked, his face both tense and skeptical. He looked nothing like I had envisioned. He was a young black man with stylish glasses, dressed casually in jeans and a button-up, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Imaginary turtle-neck dweeb wouldn't have dreamed of wearing denim or putting any creases in his starched sleeves. I noticed the apartment behind the neighbor was pitch black and for a moment I worried that I may have awakened him. Fantastic.

Affecting the most cheery tone of voice I could muster, I extended my arm forward and shot my hand right through the darkness beyond the door frame, "Hi, I'm your neighbor from upstairs, Ruth. It's so nice to meet you."

"Oh, hi..." he said meekly before hesitantly opening the door a little wider and weakly shaking my hand.

Leaving no room for awkward pause, I launched right in:

"Listen, I want to apologize for all the noise you've been hearing upstairs. I won't apologize for my husband. He's a big boy and can do that for himself if he decides to, but he was just on-edge today and you came at a bad time. Anyway, just so you know we both really do care and we're doing everything we can to dampen the noise."

To my surprise, rather than begin to snivel about the issue and how the situation had been addressed on the part of my gruff husband, he visibly relaxed, opened the door wide, and smiled. Despite his strange initial approach (4 times in 24 hours), this time he very gracefully explained what he was hearing and what times he preferred things to be a little more quiet. We hashed things out, both of us conceding a little to satisfy the other's schedule. It was clear that we were both going to walk away satisfied, so we eventually changed the subject and made friendly small talk.

As we were wrapping up our talk, and just as I was relishing in the fact that it had, overall, been an awkward-free, and dare-I-say, pleasant, conversation, my eyes were suddenly and inexplicably drawn to the crotch of his pants. There they landed with horror on his gaping, wide-open fly and the thin stretch of underwear that very poorly concealed his junk. I instantly diverted my gaze at the very same second that he realized I had just received an eyeful of information one doesn't normally get when meeting their neighbor for the first time...or any time thereafter. He took a not-so-discreet step back behind the door to shield his lower half and extended his hand in a hasty gesture of goodbye, which I grasped weakly this time.We said goodbye. I walked back upstairs, shut the door quietly, and washed my hands. Twice.

We haven't heard from him again.

The Geography of Los Angeles in Relationship to George Michael's Weiner

Maybe I've been living in NYC for too long because whenever I'm anywhere else in the country late at night, I am incurably baffled by the lack of 24-hour businesses. I always find myself asking,

"How is it that the only thing open within a 15 mile radius is a single gas station?!" 

Somehow, my 20-something years of prior experience in Ohio with "normal" business hours has been wiped from my memory, replaced by expectations of convenience provided by The City That Never Sleeps, such as 4am bar closing times, liquor stores open until midnight, restaurants open all night, 24-hour grocery stores and bodegas...

This is, perhaps, indirectly why on a recent Monday at 4am, I was in the back seat of a pimped-out VW JettaWagen helplessly allowing myself to be carted at illegal speeds down the 405 from LAX to my hotel in West Hollywood by a random driver, who, I realized too late in the ride to hop out, was full of uppers.

I had been standing on the taxi pick-up curb for a while without seeing so much as a single car roll by. My flight had just landed seven hours late due to a combination of weather delays and two malfunctioning airplanes and I was exhausted. Five minutes felt like 50. The taxi attendant was absent and the phone at his station would not connect, much to the frustration of myself and the other passenger who was waiting next to me.

Just as I turned around to head back into the airport to check on other options, a man with slicked back hair, wearing dress pants and a button-up, holding a car service sign approached me and the other woman I had been waiting with, asking us if we needed a car. 

"I promise you. You are not going to find a taxi this early. Not for at least another viente minutos..." 

The other woman and I looked at each other and then at the still-vacant taxi lanes. A second later, we were walking side-by-side in silence, following this man to his parking spot, as he regaled us with a long-winded monologue about the lack of taxis at that time of night.

This might sound incredibly unsafe- to follow a random dude to his car and get in- and perhaps it was, but it is typical for off-the-clock drivers to try to earn an extra buck on their own by trolling the airports for commuters too impatient to wait in long taxi lines. For the other woman and I, there were no other options in sight. There were two of us (power in numbers) and we had both just experienced the same frustratingly long commute. We were not to be fucked with. Not at this hour nor after the day we'd just had.

BLIP BLIP

The sound of the car doors unlocking snapped me out of my jet lagged daze. My eyes settled incredulously on this pimpmobile of a car that was now being opened by our driver. I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of such a car being touted as a livery vehicle. From the chrome spinner hubcaps to the tinted windows and  two-tone custom paint job to the rear-view camera and bottled beverages in the doors, nothing about it cried "professional car service!" I sensed the other woman's pace slow as she, too, realized what we were about to be driven to our hotels in. Again, we gave each other a look, which was cut short by our still-rapidly talking driver grabbing the other woman's bags and throwing them in the trunk. We both sidled into the low-riding back seats.

"I can't believe there were no cabs," she said, nervously watching the driver cross around to the driver's side door while she buckled her seat belt.

"This is the second time this has happened to me here," I replied, following suit and buckling my own seat belt.

"You've done this before then?"

("This" meaning hopping into the car of a random driver without a livery license?)

"Yes." But never one who drove a car like this. I omitted that specification. I didn't want her to feel any more nervous than she already appeared.

The driver hopped in, still chatting excitedly, lit up with a glow that I assumed was related to the thrill of nabbing two customers at the same time who were both traveling to the same area of Hollywood. We pulled out of LAX and he continued talking, barely pausing to take a breath. For a little while, I appreciated the non-stop conversation he was having at us. It kept at bay the awkward feeling of responsibility to keep up small talk for the duration of the ride. He was so cheerful that I allowed myself to laugh generously at some of his jokes. I sensed my riding companion begin to relax and even she contributed a few chuckles.

Then we hit the 405. And I watched with horror as the speedometer hit 100 and kept going.

"...and over there is South Central L.A.." The driver waved his hand toward some general direction off of the highway while I silently willed both of his hands to remain firmly on the wheel. "Some of the neighborhoods there? Not so good."

My amusement quickly turned to concern over the uncomfortably fast commute I was experiencing. Refusing to reveal my nervousness for the sake of my back seat friend's fragile sanity, I entertained the driver's haphazardly delivered tour of the greater Los Angeles area by nodding weakly back at his reflection in the rearview mirror and chuckling at appropriate intervals. The woman had fallen silent and I noticed her hand engaged in a white-knuckled grip on the door handle. 

"What hotels are you going to again?" the driver asked us both. 

We spouted off our hotel names for the second time. He had never heard of my hotel. I wasn't sure of the intersection so I whipped out my phone to pull it up on Google Maps, but he stopped me. 

"It's okay! It's okay! I will just call the hotel and get directions from my route," he said, already dialing Information. 

As his phone was dialing, I tried to give him the intersection details which were already pulled up on my phone, but he kept cutting me off, telling me he would get exact directions from the hotel. I was too tired to try any harder and just wanted him to keep his eyes on the road instead of on me in his mirror, so I let him make the call.

As his call was connecting, he had finally exited the 405. Hallelujah! We were on local roads again! He continued to push all silence out of the car and fill it with his endless monologue.

"Oh! You guys want to see where George Michael got arrested the first time?" He was so excited for this part of the tour that I humored him again, 

"Uh, sure?"

"Sure!" the woman beside me echoed, a bit more enthusiastically than necessary. I stole a quick glance at her face and found it oddly lit up with interest. Ultimately, I chalked it up to her clearly being relieved to be traveling under 100mph again and, as a result, owning her new lease on life. Because, surely, nobody cares that much about George Michael?

The driver pulled up to a red light and pointed across the intersection at a small brick building.

"You see that right there? That's a public bathroom. That's where he got arrested. Can you believe George Michael was dumb enough to pull out his wiener right there? Right next to a busy street? Ha ha ha! Stupid! Dios mio!"

The woman beside me laughed uproariously. Sheesh. So maybe it was mildly funny (in more of a bizarre way) back in '98 before pop singers were frequently making public journeys out of the closet, but in 2010 at 4am? She was obviously slap happy now.

"And look! Right across the street from a police station, too! What an idiot! Ha ha ha," he laughed, exposing a mouth full of gleaming gold caps, while breezing past the LAPD station doing 20mph over the speed limit. Idiot, indeed.

As he finished chatting away about George Michael, I could hear a perturbed voice coming through the earpiece of his phone, saying "Hello? Helloooo?" before finally hanging up.

Five minutes later, the driver said, "Oh! I better call the hotel for directions again! I think they might be mad at me because I didn't answer! ha ha ha."

Ten minutes later, and not a moment too soon, we arrived at my hotel. 

"That will be $56."

I hated to prolong the moment any more, but needed change.

"Oh yeah! I have change. One minute!" he said, running around back to the trunk.

Bidding the woman adieu, I got out of the car with my purse and my backpack, my only two bags for the short trip, and met the driver at the trunk, assuming that he was getting change for me back there. 

"Which one's your bag?" he asked.

"Oh, I have both of them already. Do you have that change?"

"You don't have a bag back here? I could have sworn I put one back here for you!" He began digging around feverishly. 

"No, just these two bags right here."

"Are you sure?" 

"I'm sure."

"Are you positive?" 

Good God, man! Just give me some damn change and let me go so I can get 3 hours of sleep before the day-long shoot ahead of me!

"Absolutely positive." I said, instead, with a strained, but polite smile on my face. 

"Okay, let me get you change," he finally said and, to my disbelief, marched ahead of me through the hotel doors and up to the concierge to ask for change.

The concierge replied with a look of annoyance, clearly recognizing the driver as the man who called earlier, and disappeared in the back to grab change. The other front-desk attendant began my check-in process, but was repeatedly interrupted by the driver making small talk while drumming his fingers loudly on the counter. Seeing him face-to-face under the unforgiving brightness of the front desk lights, it was painfully apparent that he was probably brimming full with something a lot stronger than caffeine. I wanted to kiss the floor of the hotel lobby and thank all things holy that I made it. Bad weather and two faulty airplanes were nothing compared to the commute I had just experienced in the pimp-mobile.

The driver went on to make a show out of counting the bills before we finalized our transaction. I tipped him a little more than I should have just to get him out of there quickly and comfortably, but of course, it backfired. He ran back in the door twice more: once to tell me thank you and then again to give me his card. I sent an apologetic look to the other woman, who was still waiting in the back seat, and mentally wished her a safe trip down the remaining block to her hotel.

"...and make sure you call me when you're ready to go back to the airport!" he said before, finally, parting.

"Will do."

I most certainly did not.

Laughing in Church Today, Fiery Damnation Tomorrow

My shoes squished as I entered the confessional and I winced, praying to a merciful God that the priest wouldn't hear them or notice my dripping pant legs. Never was a confession of sins so short or so quickly delivered as it was the day I peed my pants in church.

I'm not sure what it is about being in church that lends itself to mischief. Perhaps it's the somber setting, the sit-stand-kneel routine, the quietness of the congregation, the grave sermons, or the gaggles of old women clutching rosaries to their lips, whispering stale-breathed Hail Mary's. Whatever the case, it is, apparently, too much pressure for the irreverent juveniles my sister Becca and I tend to become when within 20 feet of each other.

Place the two of us in a formal situation and watch as we try our hardest to unravel each other's poise. Oh, your grandfather just died and Becca and I are paying our respects at the casket? Pay no attention to my shaking shoulders; it's just me grieving. It has absolutely nothing to do with Becca mimicking the dead guy's face in the most disturbingly skillful manner.

On this particular day, Becca and I had been escorted to church by my mother, who had informed us that we were full of sin, as of late, and probably due for a good soul cleansing at confession. Regardless of how right she was, neither of us particularly looked forward to waiting in a line 30-senior-citizens-deep for an hour only to reach the end where we would quickly conjure up a sin-list just long enough to be appropriate for confession without being so long as to piss off the people waiting behind us*. It wasn't long before we'd found a way to entertain ourselves. 

Heeding my mother's suggestion to use the wait time in line to reflect on my transgressions, I folded my hands and assumed the most pious expression I could muster. Becca was standing quietly in front of me and appeared to have paid heed to my mother's suggestion, too. I closed my eyes in order to focus more on how to best word one particular sin that may or may not have involved sneaking glasses of my mother's boxed Franzia from the fridge.

As I stood there, a strange feeling came over me...like I was being watched. Perhaps it was the Almighty peering into the black abyss of evil deeds within me? No...it was something else...

I opened my eyes only to be met with the face of my sister, two inches from my own, twisted into the most hideously obnoxious expression she could manage. There was no time to filter my reaction. A loud "BAHAHAHA" escaped my throat, bouncing loudly off the rafters and stained glass depictions of Christ on the cross. I swiftly covered my mouth with my hands to contain my laughter and Becca did the same, as the creaking of stiff old necks turning met our ears and we felt the heat of dozens of aged eyes burning shame into our souls with an adeptness only the Catholics can rally.

Becca was in agony, trying with all her might to stifle her snorts of laughter. Watching her body racked with hilarity and hearing her raggedly inhale and gulp back chuckles was too much for me. With laughter being more contagious than a cold, I doubled over, holding my stomach in fits of my own silent giggles, when suddenly the urge to pee hit me furiously. 

I stopped laughing instantly and assumed one of those panicky butt-out, legs-crossed crouches typically reserved for toddlers who can't make it to the potty seat quick enough. I was thirteen. I began to sweat.

My sister, sensing my shift in mood, turned around mid-laugh to see me hunched over in my awkward, tell-tale stance. Knowing that I was balancing precariously on the edge of Piss Reservoir, she lost it. I lost it. I was guffawing helplessly as pee started to trickle, and then gush, down my pant legs. Holding back pee was as much of a lost cause as holding back our laughter and by now we were a spectacle to behold: me madly giggling in my soaking wet pants while tripping over my chortling sister's hunched form on my mad dash to the bathroom.

I spent the next half hour in the basement bathroom rinsing out my pants. When I gathered enough courage and self-control to ascend back upstairs to the confession line, Becca was already at the front. I soberly headed to the back of the line to avoid stirring up any more trouble. My mother, completely unaware of the whole spectacle, was surprised to see me at the back of the line. When she asked me why I was all the way at the end, I lied, saying that I just needed a little more time to reflect on my sins. She was happy with my answer until later on the car ride home when Julianne said, "I can't believe you peed your pants!"

At long last it was my turn for confession. I entered the room and rounded the privacy curtain that blocked off the view of the other confession goers only to find that this was a face-to-face set up with the priest. I was used to screened confessionals where you can only barely make out the form of the person on the other side and your identity remains anonymous. I froze mid-stride and stood there awkwardly before the priest, my gaze shifting from his face to the door, trying to decide whether or not to run.

"Welcome. Have a seat."

Reluctantly, I decided to stay and walked to the chair adjacent to the priest's. 

Squish. Squish. Squish.

I paused, hovering my soaking backside over the cushioned, cloth seat of my chair. If I sat down here, the next confessor was in for a wet surprise. 

"What brings you here today?" the priest launched in, cutting short my internal debate.

I gingerly sat down on the very edge of the seat.

Somewhere in the middle of rapidly ticking off some stock juvenile sins along the lines of "disrespecting my parents," "fighting with my siblings," or "cussing," but skirting completely around the freshest sin of them all, it became undeniably apparent that I had soiled myself as the stench of urine filled the small room. The priest pretended not to notice that anything was amiss, but graciously sped through absolution while I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. As soon as the final blessing was said, I muttered a quick thanks and shot out the room abruptly. That day, I left behind no genuine confession of sins other than a set of soggy footprints on the polished confessional floor.

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been 13 years since my best confession."

-----------------------------------------------

*(Side story: when I was ten years old, my father made me wait TWO HOURS for an old lady in line in front of me to finish spewing off her list of sins. What the HELL did that 95 year old woman do that warranted a two hour confession? Old gal must have raped, pillaged, and murdered a village of people with her bare hands for it to take that long. I'm not sure waiting in line has ever pissed me off as much as it did that day. Shoot...3 hour DMV visit? Bring it.)

Dear AT&T

Dear AT&T--

I'm standing here in my living room bleeding to death. My right arm was just hacked off by a manic, misguided intruder who was trying to rob me of the pot of lucky charms I apparently stole from him last week. This makes dialing 911 while I'm holding the assaulter down a lot more difficult. You see, I never was a lefty. (I won't even mention how long it's taking me to type this open letter to you.)

You know what else makes dialing 911 difficult?

Your shit service.

How marvelous that I am currently paying somewhere around $250 for 2 iphones and approximately 4 successfully connected phone calls per month, yet I can't get service when it's most crucial. Or any other time for that matter.

Office? Nope. Edit? Nope. Home? Ha.

There are imprints of my face on the windows of all three of these places. You know why? Because I'm constantly pressed up against them trying to salvage one iota of service. One bar would be enough for me.

"Oh, what's that, God? You're calling to tell me the meaning of life?...Hello? Hello? Are you there, God? It's me, Ruth............God damn it all! Dropped call again."

Your lack of service has broken down my personal relationships, bit by bit. Friends and family don't call me anymore because they only ever reach my voicemail and if they reach me, they know you're going to drop my call within seconds.

I would call to inform you of the fact that your service is less effective than the string & can method (because surely I'll be the first ever to complain about this...really...), but, shockingly, I can't get a call to connect.

At this rate, I'm going to die a poor, lonely, one-armed, Lionel Richie fan and you're going to have no one but yourself to blame.

I would flash a stiff middle finger in your direction, but I currently only have one and I'm now going to be using it to plug up my gushing artery.

Yours, ever so appreciatively...

x (Look here. See what you've done? I'm simply too weak to sign my name now, so I've put this x here as my mark. For shame!)

Bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase "dropping the kids off at the pool..."

Anyone driving or walking down Marie Avenue in Akron, Ohio on any given day in 1985 or '86 might have heard the voice of a little girl in an upstairs window calling out...

"MOM! I NEED YOU TO COME WIPE MY BUTTHOLE!"

For those people who know me or my family, I'm sure it's completely unsurprising that some of my earliest memories are about poop.

It seems my family's genetics predisposed all four of my brothers, all four of my sisters, and me to senses of humor and comedic timing centered around the toilet. On what chromosomal pairing does poop humor lie you ask? The missing one.

My first memory of poop was very early. I must have been about a year and a half because I was still waddling around in a diaper and my vocabulary was limited to a couple words here and there.

On this particular day, my mother was in the bedroom, folding "Mount Clothesmore," our not-so-fondly-named perpetual tower of laundry. In her distraction, she didn't notice me leave the room. I had a mission I was dying to complete and I would have done it much earlier if the family would just leave me to my own devices for a change instead of constantly picking me up and setting me down away from the objects of my curiosity. I entered the bathroom and headed straight for it. There it was, gleaming in all of its ivory porcelain glory, its upper deck sweating in the hot summer air. The toilet looked more mysterious and magnificent than ever. I eagerly peered over the lid and, to my delight, a lone floater met my eye. Unsure of what it was, but too young to care, my hand shot straight into the bowl to claim my prize.

With each poke, the turd bobbed elusively away from my dimpled hand and I found myself myself reaching further and further into the toilet. My oldest brother entered the bathroom just as I was about to take a nosedive into the toilet bowl, startling the tiny living shit right out of me by shouting, "MOM!"

In a breath, I was being plucked from the edge of my watery fate and deposited in the adjacent sink, elbow deep in soap suds and trying to make sense of the flurry of angry and panicky words coming from my mother's mouth as she scrubbed me clean. I didn't know exactly what she said, but from her demeanor I quickly deduced that toilets were bad, poop was worse, and both were terrifying.

It wasn't long after that I was potty trained, but with a catch...

I was scared to death of falling in the toilet and even more terrified of touching my own poop. Every time I went poop, I was insistent that my mother wipe my butt for me. She accomodated me for a while, but when it became apparent that my fear was turning phobic, she decided it was time to dole out some tough love and stopped responding to my requests...

...But I was a stubborn kid.

I once sat on the toilet and shouted for her to come wipe my butt for an hour straight, while my family sat downstairs at the dinner table ignoring me.

It must have been a couple weeks of this before I gave in and began taking matters into my own hands. My father spent much of 1986 unclogging massive wads of TP from the toilet and barking, "Whoever's using this much toilet paper is in for it," knowing exactly who the culprit was. I never fessed up. The thought of being forced to use anything less than 5 inches of toilet paper border between me and my poop was too frightening to bear. Luckily, he let it go for a while.

My fear of poop came to a head when I was four or five years old.

My parents had some family friends over and I had been swept up in playing house in the basement with a couple of kids my age. I was having so much fun that I ignored my urge to go until it was too late. I attempted to run up the stairs to the bathroom, only to stop abruptly as my last ditch effort at pinching failed miserably.

Red-faced, I found my way up to my room and shut the door. I was wearing cable-knit tights that day, causing my biggest fear to be nestled tightly against my bottom. There was absolutely no way I was going to let anyone know that I pooped my pants, least of all my mother, who I was sure would be beyond upset. I had to face my fear.

I carefully pulled off my bottoms and quickly replaced them with new ones, breathing a sigh of relief that I made the switch before anyone walked in. I was so proud of myself for taking care of my own business and being within such a close range of a turd-out-of-water, that I marched happily downstairs to resume the fine game of playing house. My fecalphobia was, at last, conquered

Later that night, as I was helping set the table for dinner, I heard my mother yell out in surprise from my bedroom. She was in there picking up dirty laundry when she stumbled across my turd, perched like an egg atop a nest of skid-marked underwear and cable-knit tights. Oops.

An Open Letter to the Family of Clog Dancers Living Above Me

Dear Family in 2L,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am the current tenant in 1L, also known as the apartment directly below yours. What's that? You can't hear me? Right. That's because I'm quiet. It's also because you are apparently busy setting the world record for "decibels acheived" in Wii's new game: Clog Hero. I congratulate you, in advance, for undoubtedly holding the game's world record. For a year straight.

When my husband, daughter, and I moved into the apartment below yours a year ago, we had to check our lease on the first night. You see, we were concerned that we'd accidently been placed in an animal shelter...for horses...who are trained in tap dancing.

Initially, we were concerned for you. I came very close to running up with a sack, duct tape, and a club to assist three-stooges-style in taking down what couldn't, in our minds, be anything other than a murderous assaulter. After 5 minutes of this noise turned into twenty, turned into 2 hours, turned into all night long, it suddenly made sense! You are training a herd of small children for the Olympic record for noisy stampeding.

While this is an honorable endeavor, it became quite inconvenient for my husband and I as we attempted get our daughter to sleep at night, what with your practices commencing an hour before her bedtime every day. Every single day.

However, we are true believers in never giving up on your dreams and far be it from us to stop you from acheiving your pint-sized, child-labor-extorted Olympic victory!

It's just that...and, really, I hate to even suggest this...but, is clog dancing a necessary training exercise for these events? And not just that...is clog dancing at midnight necessary? Perhaps a better description for the activity that takes place above our heads would be clog slam dancing. Please, explain to me how you acheive those impossible amplitudes. I have a theory on how. You jump off of chairs, don't you? You jump off of chairs, onto hard wood floors, wearing clogs, while holding 20 lb weights in each hand. Then you drop the weights.

It wasn't until I couldn't hear my friend speaking right next to me over the noise of your 2L adventures that I did something that I'm not proud of. No one would be. I turned into the angry, old mumu-wearing spinster who's frustration takes the form of a broom to the ceiling. Oh yes I did. I pounded the ceiling with the hard, cold handle of a broom. LOUDLY. It took you a few seconds, but miraculously you heard it over your own clatter and there was an eerie moment of silence as my last pound echoed off of the walls in both of our apartments. I threw the broom to the ground, sick over what I'd just done. I wanted to take the moment back. I was sure that you'd sneak down in the middle of the night, break in, and beat me to death with your clogs and honestly, I didn't blame you. Who does that? What am I? Thelma Harper from "Mama's Family?" I was this close to dying of shame, when I noticed it was silent.

You got the hint! I couldn't believe I had let 10 months go by without doing that! There was silence! Sweet, beautiful...unnerving...silence.

Yeah, well, that lasted all of one night.

The training has since been amped up, but it's okay, I'm not worried about it. You see, we are moving on. Literally. We're moving out of the damn building. You are the clear winner. It takes a lot of practice to win like that...and you've certainly had practice.

So, I bid you adieu, family of miniature ponies. May the horse be with you on your way to Olympic gold.

xoxo Miss you (not),

Your quiet, considerate, incredibly good looking neighbor in 1L.

Elevator Etiquette

I am an asshole when it comes to the elevator.

Yes, I am that person who gave you the apologetic "oh no! I didn't see you madly dashing to the elevator and now it's too late and the doors are clos--" look, while furiously hitting the "close door" button. It's nothing personal; I just can't stand the 2 minutes of agony that a ride on the elevator with you inflicts.

Sharing small spaces with strangers is so awkward and unnatural and just plain miserable. Every time I get on, I'm plagued by a large group of people that hop on after me, going to lower floors than my destination, and inevitably lingering in the doorway to try to finish their conversation about the "meeting" with another co-worker.

Elevators are awkward. Everyone always avoids eye contact while riding. Friends and co-workers desperately attempt to sound casual as they are flanked tightly on all sides by complete strangers. Nobody ever succeeds at perfecting conversational nonchalance and their failure is underlined by the way they burst forth from the elevators onto their floor, exhaling sharply, as though they were given a second chance at life.

I've compiled a list of tips that will help make your and others' rides as pleasant as humanly possible, given the circumstances...

On Odors...
Tip #1: If you've just taken a bath in cologne, avoid elevators at all costs, lest you want to accept responsibility for a young mother passing out from musk-induced asphyxiation at your feet.
Tip #2: If you have failed to brush your teeth that morning, don't speak, close your mouth, and possibly hold your breath. You might not be able to smell it yourself, but, rest assured, that girl in the corner discreetly covering her nose with a scarf has noticed and is presently cursing whatever brand of Indian food you ate the night before.
Tip #3: It is absolutely not okay to let one loose on an elevator. If you feel one brewing, release it into the lobby. Farts don't like riding the elevator either and will attack the noses of everyone on it, in their desperate attempt to escape. Please, think of the poor farts.
Tip #4: If you haven't washed your pants in 4 weeks and you sit down at your job all day long, take the stairs. You smell like a homeless person.

On Phones...
Tip #1: Unless it's the fire department calling to figure out which elevator you're stuck in, don't answer the phone.
Tip #2: Elevators eat your reception, genius. If you must take or make a call, get off at the next floor so that we don't have to listen to you shout your "can you hear me's" and "hullo...hullo...hullo's" every 3 seconds.
Tip #3: If we wanted to hear your January playlist, we'd ask. Seriously, how are you not deaf?

On Conversations...
Tip #1: It's going to be awkward no matter what....just...don't.
Tip #2: Okay, if you MUST talk...try not to joke. I promise you, no one on an elevator is in the mood to laugh. Also, the more mouths that are open, the hairier the smells will get (refer to Odor section).
Tip #3: To ensure that you don't sound like a complete douchebag, avoid talking about yourself favorably, or in monetary terms, for the benefit of listening ears. We couldn't, for example, give a shit about your investment returns or your 6 weeks of paid vacation, whence you dusted off the baby grand in your summer home in Nantucket.
Tip #4: If you drank heavily the night before, chances are, we already know. No need to vocally reiterate your sloppiness. (Also, refer to Odor section.)
Tip #5: Conversations for the sake of filling the dead air are incredibly uncomfortable and pathetically awkward. Looking busy before and during the ride will help you avoid these. Texting/ emailing is favorable. Spilling the contents of one's purse on the floor of the elevator is not favorable.

On exiting and entering:
Tip #1: If someone behind you needs to get off, step off of the elevator to let them pass. Do not squeeze more tightly against the person at your side.
Tip #2: If you see that someone else has been waiting longer to board, give them the courtesy of allowing them to get on first. You do have to share intimate space with them for the next 120-300 seconds. It's best not to rush ahead of them and cut them off.

And finally...
Tip #3 (perhaps the most important tip of them all): If you see me boarding, wait for the next one. I like to have the luxury of riding alone so that I can break all of my own rules. ;-)

Pleasantly surprised

Go figure. Who knew the people on that side of the river were so nice?

Andrew and I had no idea how friendly the people of New Jersey were until we ventured out on the PATH into Jersey City for an apartment viewing. It started when a woman struck up a conversation with us on the train. It was my first time riding the PATH and if it hadn't been for Andrew, I'd have no idea where I was. She approached us, asking if she was on the right train. Luckily, Andrew knew and our conversation floated along amicably from there, until we reached our stop at Pavonia Street. I was struck by how talkative and genuinely nice this woman was as I exited the train. Usually on my commutes through Manhattan the general rule of thumb seems to be head-down, eyes on your own business...

Just as we reached the top of the terminal, another woman overheard us looking for the light rail and took it upon herself to give us directions to the closest light rail stop...all while holding the door open for us and our stroller.

We followed the woman's directions to the light rail, which we had never taken, when we were intercepted by another kind Jerseyan, who, with her partner, showed us where to buy and stamp our tickets, then helped us transfer light rails when it was realized that we were on the wrong one.

We got off at the same stop as the woman and her partner to transfer and they went on their way, bidding us luck. Just as we were remarking to each other how friendly the people of New Jersey are, a couple, who had overheard us saying it was our first light rail ride, approached us to let us know that the stop we were at to transfer was a dangerous one. They pointed to all the police stationed around that stop and let us know that it wouldn't be a good idea for us to stop here on a normal day. The police were there because someone had been stabbed in the adjacent parking lot earlier in the week and that stop was infamous for muggings. Grim news, but we were thankful for their insight into the area.

Then, when we reached our destination, yet another woman approached us and pointed us in the direction of an elevator that we could take instead of the large flight of stairs that would take us up to the main road.

Seven strangers from New Jersey. Every single one of them took it upon themselves to help make our commute not only easier, but more pleasant. Some went out of their way to do so.

What I expected to be a pain-in-the-ass trip into our sister state turned out to be pleasantly...PLEASANT. And though the next statement may not fall into the context of this blog...I am optimistic.

Your Meat Courting Agenda

Day 1:
It's my first day at the neighborhood YMCA I just joined and I'm going to vomit.
It's been almost a decade since my last honest to God workout and I've easily forgotten what it feels like to run further than the 10 foot distance from my couch to the Carlo Rosse jug in my fridge during the commercial break between "Brothers & Sisters"...And, yes, absolutely everything about that sentence was shameful. Huzzah.

I come into the Y for the first time, vaguely aware--based on my 3-day-straight KSU gym attendance-dash-ploy to appear fit for a dreamy young English professor who also frequented that gym--that with every gym there is gym etiquette, from wiping down your equipment after use, to steering clear of the personal training area unless with trainer, to time limits on machines, but I am unsure of what normal procedure is here. Naturally, in my mind, everyone in the designated stretching area notices that I do not have a towel. In fact, I missed the memo that said, "bring a towel to the stretching mats so that you don't contract arm chlamydia from our over-used porous surfaces. Love, your overly friendly neighborhood stretching mats xoxo."

So here I am hunkering down into an awkward squat to stretch my hamstrings, trying to maintain a bored expression to mask the agony within, when I look around at my stretching cohorts and am horrified to find every single one of them posing in some sort of impossibly twisted yoga-tantric-sluttified stretch. Damn! What is the point of bending yourself in half the wrong way so that your body can form a perfect O with your ankles by your face on the mat?

Question answered.

Everyone in my gym is a slut on display. From the girl on the elliptical with her shirt pulled up way too far to expose her glistening back dimples to the guys in the weight room squatting more weight than they probably should...it's a meat market and they're all butchers. And I'm the only vegetarian in the whole damn room. Narf.

ONWARDS! To my workout!

15 minutes later...AAAAND I'm done. Time to grab my gym bag , a towel, a glass of wine, and an ibuprofen. Not necessarily in that order.

Listen, not everything "flies" when you fly.

There's something about seeing a 90 lb. 90-year-old elbow her way to the front of the plane (because God-forbid anyone reach the empty baggage claim area before she does) that both alarms and amuses me. It's so raw, so wild, so impolite, so...STUPID! I see it in the young, the old, the big and the small: manners and logic fly out the window when people fly anywhere.

To all those people with seating assignments in zone 6 who insist on crowding around the front of the boarding line like rabid wolves, waiting for your zone to be called...SIT DOWN. Your being at the front of the line is not going to make the plane take off more quickly. In fact, it confuses the people in zones 1-5, who stand behind you, thinking that you're in their zone and that they need to wait behind you. Congratulations, geniuses, you single-handedly just slowed down the boarding of the entire damn plane and now we're 15 minutes behind-schedule because of that.

Look at the 15-seat-deep stomach-to-back-tight line for the bathroom at any given moment in the flight...Listen to the clamor of clicking as everyone scrambles to unfasten their seat belts the very microsecond the captain turns off the "fasten seat belt" sign when the flight is over...all so they can squeeze themselves into an over-crowded aisle where they push and shove to grab their bags. Humans have such an intense desire to be first and such a deep distaste for being cooped up that they will blindly sabotage their own efforts in their misguided attempts to obtain their freedom. First.

Sit your ass down in your seat and wait for those first 30 aisles ahead of you to empty out instead of constipating the aisle any further with your farty-plane-seat stench and your awkward carry-on that, let's face it, is so damn big, it should have been checked.

Oh, and if you're one of those lovely people with a window seat who insists on standing up next to me at the end of the flight to let me know you want out, DON'T WORRY. I'll let you brush past me the very moment the aisle beside me clears enough for you to do so. It is not okay to wedge yourself between me and the seat in front of me and breathe down my neck. There's no room in the aisle for me, so why do you think there's going to be any room for your double-wide?

Life is much less stressful when you just let go and let people go before you. How many minutes do you really gain in your frantic rush? 1? 2? Is that worth the stress? If you truly can't wait, if you have a flight to catch, exercise some manners. A little "pardon," "please," and "thank you" go a long way and have the curious effect of clearing a pathway instantaneously.