Traffic Jam
This morning was one of the distressingly frequent mornings where I want to kill everyone on the train.
That means you, chattering Hispanic lady yip-yapping about “I wanna see my abs again, yo. I quit smoking, yo, and now I can’t see my abs no more, you know. You can be like 140 pounds, yo, and not look overweight, yo, but for me, yo, I wanna see my abs. Yo.”
Yes. I feel you. I smell what you’re cooking. I’m picking up what you’re putting down. I am aware of your desire to see your abs again, as are the rest of the people in the car. Maybe, though, if smoking keeps you quieter, you might consider readopting the habit as a public service.
I also want to kill you, shockingly foul-mouthed day laborer type. I am by no means a profanity-free woman, but after a few minutes, your determination to say ‘fuck’ no less than three times a sentence in a gravelly, high volume whine began to stick even in my filthy ears.
You swore so much, Mr. Day Laborer, I turned it into a magical thinking game: ‘if he gets in 11 ‘fucks’ and 7 ‘motherfuckers’ before West 4th, I’ll have a date for New Year’s Eve.’
Or, ‘If he responds to his mumbly, mostly inaudible companion with six or more ‘fucks’ in one sentence, I’ll have pretty hair at the Christmas party tomorrow.’
Wheeeee!
And you over there, Thug Life. Sure, you look hard with your bling and cornrows and scowl, but I can hear Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” loud and clear through your iPod’s headphones, so you might need to reconsider your morning commuting music if intimidation is your intended effect.
In New York, the thronging masses are pretty much unavoidable. People are just everywhere, and some days it just sucks to have to deal with complete strangers wedged into your personal space in order to get to work.
It makes me think, more and more lately, about getting the hell out of Dodge for a while (was California only two weeks ago?), just to decompress and be in a healthier head-space.
The stress of day-to-day city life gets me in hermit mode sometimes, where I go home, pull on my pajamas, and flop in front of the TV.
Lately, one of my televised pleasures has been Everest: Beyond the Limit, on the Discovery Channel. This is, hands down, some of the most compelling TV I’ve ever seen. It chronicles two teams of climbers whose goal is to summit on Everest. The footage of these guys is heart-stopping, terrifying, and sometimes triumphant, shot by intrepid climbing camera men and with Sherpa-cams.
Last week, only one of the climbers on the first team made the summit, but it took him a hell of a lot longer than it should have.
Why?
There was a traffic jam. On the summit. Of Mount Everest. No shit.
Apparently, a group of amateur climbers, oddly without Sherpas or any support staff, were dawdling their way towards the summit, and the climbers on the documentary team got stuck behind them for several hours in ‘the Death Zone,’ where the air is so thin your body can only survive for so long before you get altitude sickness and your body starts to consume itself for energy.
The lesson here is: Even on the peak of the highest point on earth, you’ll find no shortage of slow moving, incompetent people, there just to poop all over your day.
Maybe New York’s not so bad after all . . .
That means you, chattering Hispanic lady yip-yapping about “I wanna see my abs again, yo. I quit smoking, yo, and now I can’t see my abs no more, you know. You can be like 140 pounds, yo, and not look overweight, yo, but for me, yo, I wanna see my abs. Yo.”
Yes. I feel you. I smell what you’re cooking. I’m picking up what you’re putting down. I am aware of your desire to see your abs again, as are the rest of the people in the car. Maybe, though, if smoking keeps you quieter, you might consider readopting the habit as a public service.
I also want to kill you, shockingly foul-mouthed day laborer type. I am by no means a profanity-free woman, but after a few minutes, your determination to say ‘fuck’ no less than three times a sentence in a gravelly, high volume whine began to stick even in my filthy ears.
You swore so much, Mr. Day Laborer, I turned it into a magical thinking game: ‘if he gets in 11 ‘fucks’ and 7 ‘motherfuckers’ before West 4th, I’ll have a date for New Year’s Eve.’
Or, ‘If he responds to his mumbly, mostly inaudible companion with six or more ‘fucks’ in one sentence, I’ll have pretty hair at the Christmas party tomorrow.’
Wheeeee!
And you over there, Thug Life. Sure, you look hard with your bling and cornrows and scowl, but I can hear Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” loud and clear through your iPod’s headphones, so you might need to reconsider your morning commuting music if intimidation is your intended effect.
In New York, the thronging masses are pretty much unavoidable. People are just everywhere, and some days it just sucks to have to deal with complete strangers wedged into your personal space in order to get to work.
It makes me think, more and more lately, about getting the hell out of Dodge for a while (was California only two weeks ago?), just to decompress and be in a healthier head-space.
The stress of day-to-day city life gets me in hermit mode sometimes, where I go home, pull on my pajamas, and flop in front of the TV.
Lately, one of my televised pleasures has been Everest: Beyond the Limit, on the Discovery Channel. This is, hands down, some of the most compelling TV I’ve ever seen. It chronicles two teams of climbers whose goal is to summit on Everest. The footage of these guys is heart-stopping, terrifying, and sometimes triumphant, shot by intrepid climbing camera men and with Sherpa-cams.
Last week, only one of the climbers on the first team made the summit, but it took him a hell of a lot longer than it should have.
Why?
There was a traffic jam. On the summit. Of Mount Everest. No shit.
Apparently, a group of amateur climbers, oddly without Sherpas or any support staff, were dawdling their way towards the summit, and the climbers on the documentary team got stuck behind them for several hours in ‘the Death Zone,’ where the air is so thin your body can only survive for so long before you get altitude sickness and your body starts to consume itself for energy.
The lesson here is: Even on the peak of the highest point on earth, you’ll find no shortage of slow moving, incompetent people, there just to poop all over your day.
Maybe New York’s not so bad after all . . .
posted by Liz at 10:41 AM
2 Comments:
brilliant!
Even when I lived in California and commuted into the city, it sucked. I think commuting just sucks. It wasn't until I switched from BART to the Ferry that all became well. There is a BAR on the Ferry! Thats right. And who doesn't enjoy a nice boat ride in the morning and the evening?
I hope to run into the "hips don't lie" thug someday. That is funny. Perhaps he would appreciate my 'Nsync tunes. Total badasses.
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