Oh, crap
I stepped in a pile of shit today. There’s no metaphor at work here, I actually planted my size 11-1/2 in an steaming mountain of fresh dog feces. In front of two co-workers. The horror! The horror! My foot slid way back and there I stood, splayed out on Broadway like some shitheeled Gene Kelley. I was mad.
On the train I meditated on the countless acts of incivility I witness every day in this city, MY city. We’re all crammed together here, toiling away for wages that barely keep up with cost of living increases, in search of the perfect Woody Allen New York of our dreams, and we have to put up with slack-jawed dog owners who won’t pick up after their dogs!? Unacceptable. Where I live, people toss litter over hedges, hock loogies in the sidewalk, and play music at ear-splitting volumes. I want to yell at them, arrest them, show them the error of their ways, but I don’t. I can’t. In New York, people mind their own business. (And any time you say something to a stranger you run the risk of getting murdered.)
I wish we had one of those hard-core three-strikes laws like California and Afghanistan. Strike one and the punishment is some form of public humiliation. The stocks, maybe? Strike two and your rent goes up by 25 percent. (New Yorkers are desensitized to just about everything except rent increases. You raise-a my rent, I break-a your face.) Strike three and you are deported to Detroit, never to return.
Well it was nice to vent. Drop an e-mail if you’re free to come shoe-shopping with me this weekend.
