manners police

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at work…

July 27, 2007 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

At work, one of the things I handle is this the Absence Memos. A secreary sends me this memo in triplicate, I note it down and do what I have to do with it, then I divide the three parts up and mail one to the secretary’s supervisor, one to the secretary, and keep one for myself. (Yeah, yeah: this is slow, inefficient, and wasteful, and should all be done electronically. Thank you, Ian. Nevertheless.) One of the blanks that the secretary has to fill out on this form is “Location.” The proper answer to this question is something along the lines of “36-220B,” that is, floor 36, pair of desks 220, to the left. Or whatever. But this is the one line of the form that secretaries fuck up more than any other. Now, when the secretaries put something like “NYO” or “New York,” it’s annoying (because I have to manually look up their location to send their third of the memo to them) but sort of forgivable. It seems based in ignorance. They just don’t realize that ALL of the Absence Memos are processed here in NYC as opposed to one of our other offices. They think they’re being helpful. Fine. But when a secretary just puts “36″ (as in, floor 36), I take a deep and bitter personal offense. This, to me, really reads like arrogance. Like they’re so fucking important that I and the mail pages all know exactly where they sit and don’t need any more help than just the floor. When I get these memos marked like this, I keep them in a special file in my desk drawer for a few extra days before I mail them out. No one has ever noticed, but if anyone ever does, I’ll answer, “Oh, gosh. I sent it days ago. It must have gotten lost in the mail. Did you put your full address on the memo?”

I LIVE for this shit. I am the queen of petty passive agression. You will not know that you’ve angered me. But suddenly! Oh yes! You will encounter a single small annoyance once day! And you will wonder…was it Jessica? And then you will quickly forget it and move on with your day.

Other things that have pissed me off in the past day:

* A woman with long toenails.
* A teenager looking at a magazine and squealing to a friend, “I want a baby like that!”
* An MTA employee, lazily lazily lazily waving people toward the train. Like, what? We can’t see it sitting there? We’ll get lost from here to the doorway? Thanks for the help, friend!@!!1
* Duane Reade employees who say “You’re welcome” after I say “Thank you.” I’m not ACTUALLY thanking you, asshole – and your line is “Thank YOU.”
* An attorney who took a really long time putting his ID card away in line at the cafeteria.
* Summer Associates talking about how drunk they get, and falling asleep in their offices.
* Every single one of my co-workers.

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shakespeare

July 19, 2007 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

It’s Shakespeare in the Park time again, and, as seems to be turning into a tradition, we once again put of getting our free tickets until the second-to-last possible day. Which means that instead of idly wandering into line at, say, 11:30 some Tuesday afternoon to receive them at 1:00, I got into line at 4:00am on Saturday morning. Slept on the sidewalk. Knitted some gloves. Read almost an entire novel. Endured fratboys pretending to be homeless to my right; endured pretending that I couldn’t smell the real homeless man to my left.

So, first, to set the scene: I show up at 4am. It’s still dark out, and a little chilly. I get into line. I’m probably 20th or so from the front. Just in front of me is a group of young (college-aged) cute kids, a little indy, a little hipster. Two adorable skinny gay boys and a girl in a little hoodie. They’re playing Boggle and keep making jokes about being gay. In front of them is a homeless guy with giant 4-foot-long dreads that he is wearing inside what appears to be, literally, a pillowcase that has just been cinched tight around his head and is hanging down his back. Some dude gets in line behind me, totally unprepared: no blanket, no chair, no coffee, no food, no book, no friends, no cards. Standing. Poor bastard can’t possibly last. More people get in line behind him. After a while the poor bastard does leave, leaving a three-foot space between me and the couple who were behind him.

I kept a running log of my day:

5:00am –
Drunk couple stumbling home. Girl laughts that bitchy high-pitched “Nyerdsss!”-laugh as she says, of the group playing Boggle to my left, “They’re playing cards!!”

5:20 –
Boggle players are officially driving me mad.
“Is ‘nosh’ a word?”
“Well, it’s Jewish. Or Yiddish.”
“Well, Yiddish isn’t a real language. It’s a combination of two languages: German and Jewish.”
“Meshuginah!”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

5:24 –
They, in turn, are being driven mad by the homeless man in front of them, it seems.
Boy: “Do you guys want to play spit?”
Girl: “I used to know how to play spit.”
Homeless man: “I used to know how to play spit.”
Boy: “Or we could just play poker.”
Homeless man: “I used to know how to play spit. I could play.”
Girl: “Maybe let’s just take a nap, instead.”

5:55 –
A group of three young Asian people have set up a chair behind me, in the barely-chair-sized gap the man behind me left. They just…moved in. The 50 or so people behind this gap in line glare and say nothing.

5:59 –
Homeless man takes off socks, smells them, says, “Woooooo!”
Srsly.

(The homeless guy [and a Boggle-player's leg in the foreground]:)
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6:29 –
The 3 kids to my right attempt to steal a delivered order of French toast from Cosi as the rightful recipient watches from downt eh line, intimidated and cowed into silence. Only after they sniff and unwrap the order, decide that they do not want it, and send the man away, does she speak up and get her food.

6:41 –
People to my left:
“Spit is boring.”
“Your face is boring.”

8:38 –
Homeless man has a prolonged, prolific, baroque coughing fit. Spits multiple times, int eh middle of his long lecture/monologue/conversation, without acknowledging any interruption.
Trying…so hard…to wait until at least 9 before I call Ian…

9:15 –
The guy to my left worked as a translator for a fortune teller at a carnival when he was a very little kid.

9:24 –
Different hobo spotted, this one not in line, just chatting with those who are. He is drinking a Budweiser tall boy from a paper bag. It is 9:24 am.
Also, the 3 Asian kids have spread their car’s trunk’s carpet over the middle of the sidewalk. One of them is lying on it, imitating and mocking beggars:
“Godda dollah? Goddah quaddah? HAR! HAR! HAR! Think I’ll actually get some money? I bet I’ll actually get some money.”
“No, you won’t get any money! You don’t look homeless! You’re wearing jeans and stuff!” (From the girl, earnestly finding the flaw in his plan.)
Hilarity ensues.

9:31 –
The Asian girl says “huh?” before every statement.
Boy: “How many tickets are we getting?”
Girl: “Huh? Five.”
Boy: “I thought it was six.”
Girl: “Huh? It was six, but now it’s five.”
Boy: “Who’s the fifth?”
Girl: “Huh? Cecilia. She’s stupid.”

9:50 –
HOLY FUCKING SHIT. A PIGEON JUST SHAT THE MOST SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN FROM A BIRD ALL OVER THE DOUCHEBAG.
It’s like a gift from heaven. The lord also hates a douchebag.
Of course, it got all over their stupid carpet, and stinks like shit (seriously – it’s like this thing pooped baby poop, not bird poop; it’s fucking spectacular) and they keep staring at it and not removing it.

(Douchebags, pre-birdshit. Note the fact that he is lying in the middle of the sidewalk. It was even worse, earlier. He was lying perpendicular instead of parallel, but he moved.)
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10:16 –
Stiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiill talkin’ about it.
“It’s gonna show up on all the NYC blogs tonight! ‘So I was waiting in line for Shakespeare tickets and this bird shit [sic] all over this poor guy…’”

10:24 –
Still haven’t talked about a single other thing. Keept talking about how it’ll be such an amazing, unbelievable story.
Dear Douchebags: No it won’t. A bird pooped on you. No one cares anymore. I hate you again. You deserve a whole second monumental pooping now from this new douchebag karma. The end.

10:26am –
Random lady walking down the street, to guy on my left with big stretched-out hole earrings:
Lady: “Did that hurt?”
Guy: “[Stock answer about how, no, they do it slowly over time, so it doesn't really hurt, yadda yadda."]
Guy’s friend: “Also, he’s a queer.”
Lady: “Oh, okay.”

10:44 –
A 3-legged dog just hopped/trotted by!
Also, still talking about bird poop. And The Game.
Idiot Girl: “The Game? Was that what the movie was based on?”
Douchebag Guy: “Nooo…”
IG: “Is it like a John Grisham book?”
DG: “No. It was written by this cool young guy.”
IG: “It sounds like a John Grisham book.”
DG: “It’s a totally great book. You definitely ought to read it.” [All snarky, thinks he's VERRRRRY clever.]
IG: “I like to read. [Ed. note: *Wide-eyed breaking-the-fourth-wall look to camera, a la Jim.*] What’s it about?”
DG: “It’s a New York Times bestseller. It’s about a guy who unlocks the secret…to life!”

10:57 –
Settling in to the rough final few hours. The douchebags are finally asleep (across the middle of the sidewalk). The Boggle players are all reading quietly. The people in the second half of the line are finally getting the hint, packing up their folding chairs and heading home. Asking us lucky few as they pass, ruefully, “When did you get here?” “4 am.” Tight annoyed smiles.
I have been wearing my ipod this entire time, but it has been off all along. Pretending to look like I can’t hear you to accidentally fall into a friendly convo. My invisible forcefield of unfriendliness!

11:45 –
Dogs keep sniffing the Korean douchebag, dead body style. Maybe one will pee on him. He was almost run over by an ice cream vendor. Update: I still hate him.

12:45pm –
We stand up! Tickets to be handed out very soon now!
Korean Douchebag: “Beauty and the Beast was mad magical.”
And, yes, STILL talking about poop and what an awesome story it will be.

All of the above quotes are true and accurate. Really truly srsly.

A few other tidbits that I apparently didn’t get down at the time, but which are also totally true:

Stinky homeless guy to my left to Asians to my right:
“Are you guys Korean?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you in the military?”
“No.”
“Oh. Because I used to know a couple Korean guys when I was in the army….” [Commence long story about being in a war.]

Homeless guy getting into what seemed to be a very passionate argument, on his end at least, about whether or not people in Europe were racist, with white teenage girls, maybe high schoolers, sitting across from him, looking terrified and confused.

It comes out over the course of conversations that the Korean douchebags are in a Korean frat. They spend much time talking about hazing new pledges. The punchline is always that the Korean sorority gets to see them naked. I.e., “We made them take off all their clothes and told them to go into the living room to sing the song, but when they went out there, all the girls were there, and they all laughed!” And: “They had to take off all their clothes and go into the [Something-amma Something-eta] house and run upstairs and steal the painting of Louie! And all the girls saw them and laughed!” Etc.

While the Douchebag is pretending to be homeless, he also pretends to be a “crazy” homeless guy. This means that in addition to holding his hand out to passerby and asking them in a “funny homeless guy” accent for a “quaddah,” he also sometimes pretends to be asleep, then rears up really fast at, I SWEAR THIS IS TRUE, small children and dogs, and growls at them and shouts wordlessly and waves his arms all about. He did this to probably half a dozen dogs and at least two children: one a maybe four or five year old blond girl, who shrieked, and one an impervious toddler in a stroller, who glanced idly over, then, dismissively, away again.

Douchebags inform someone who is walking past, one of the people asking, “How early did you get here?” that they arrived at 2am. First of all, Douchebags, you arrived at like 6. But even I only arrived at 4.

Douchebags think that since they’re near the front of the line, they will have really good front-row tickets. This is totally not true – the free tickets are all pretty far away. People with paid tickets take up the first front few sections. I am picturing, and very fully expect to see, them ignoring their assigned seating and just sitting down in front-row seats, anyway, until they get kicked out. Also, I totally imagine them walking in 15 minutes late and being distracting. Cecilia’s stupid.

Douchebags seem to be from out of town, and have some kind of crazy plan to get to Central Park: they will drive into town, try to park somewhere around “here” (which is Astor Place-ish: no parking), then take a 1-2-3 train (which in reality does not have a stop anywhere near Astor Place) to the park. Some other douchebag isn’t sure that the 1-2-3 goes to the park. After some discussion, the first doucebag says that if it isn’t nearby, they’ll just take a taxi. They all agree to this plan.

Also, here’s something: I feel bad proving the Douchebags any kind of correct at all, and I know that they predicted that someone would blog about them. My only real defense is that I don’t think they’re “some poor guy.” I think it was the righteous wrath of a vengeful god. And I hate also to agree with them that it’s a good story. Again, my defense is that I didn’t continue talking about nothing but that one thing for the next 6 hours. And also that I think it’s a good story for a different reason. Ultimately, I weighed the pros of outing their humiliation vs the cons of making this douchebag correct about something, and I decided to humiliate. So there you go.

A Brief History of the Dead, by Kevin Brockmeier (the book I finished while in line), in 100 words or less:
Meh.

(The line, dwindling off into the far far distant horizon. None of those poor assholes got tickets.)
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bitter waitress

December 1, 2006 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Ever been to BitterWaitress.com? It’s a message board for people to bitch about people who only tip 15%. It’s one of those websites that I’ll pop onto every 8 months or so and read obsessively all day while I’m bored at work. I’m wildly conflicted about it, though. Sometimes I hate the waiters, sometimes I hate the waited. The single biggest topic of discussion is, of course, tipping. Which I’m already semi-conflicted about, and which Ian and I have long boring academic-type discussions about sometimes, and bitter arguments about some other times. Like, his point is basically that on a busy Saturday night, a waiter who makes %15 on every one of multiple tables at any kind of decent restaraunt will make not only more money than a secretary or a college math professor, but potentially more money than a doctor, and that’s bullshit. My argument is that I remember what it’s like to work horrid customer service jobs (Ian has never done so) and so I’m just trying to be nice and maybe make up the slack for the not-nice customers that these people will inevitably deal with. On the other hand, I’m poor. Also, it’s some gay-ass bullshit that you have to tip a bartender $1 per beer. $1? For handing me a cup full of liquid? Seriously? But if you don’t, the bartender can actually take it out on you the next time you’re up at the bar, whereas the waitress can only bitch after you leave. And is it really ever morally correct to just simply not tip at all? Even for bad service? What about only tipping a little bit for the same reason? And is 15% enough? Is that still the correct figure? And WHY can’t waiters and waitresses just get paid a normal fucking wage so that none of this has to happen? They would be happier, we would be happier, and I can’t imagine it would actually impact service any.

But WHATEVER.

Anyway, I’ve been reading BitterWaitress recently. Doing so tends to make me vastly overtip for the next few days. But probably for the wrong reasons. It strikes me that a lot of the waitresses on BW are just…greedy. And bitchy. And overreacting. And you know what else? Lying. Totally. A few responses to a few posts on BW:

* 20% is a good tip; fuck you.
* 10% is not the worst tip ever; fuck you.
* People who order water aren’t universally cheap and won’t always stiff you.
* Why are you paying so much attention to who owns a Louis Vuitton?
* Maybe they’re NOT lying about being allergic to that.
* I didn’t mean to offend you by paying by credit card.
* I’m sorry I ordered appetizers.
* I’m sorry I didn’t order appetizers.
* I’m sorry I ordered dessert.
* I’m sorry I didn’t order dessert.
* I hate you for assuming that college students, old people, black people, couples, women, latinos, single mothers, people with mullets, people with dogs, blind people, business men, drunkards, and fatties don’t tip.

Also, I’m pretty sure you’re lying about:
* Your medical degree.
* The amount of pot you smoked in the kitchen last night.
* The way the waitress hugged and kissed you for protecting her from that guy.
* That snappy comeback.
* The lugie you hawked.
* Your repeated statements to the effect of, “I’m very sorry for your trouble, ma’am, I will most assuredly and with greatest haste correct this eggregious digression on the behalf of this good restaraunt and all culinary establishments in general,” and also the customers’ repeated statements to the effect of, “I’M A CUNT! I GOTSTA TALK TO YER FUCKING MANAGER, YA FUCK! I’M RUDE AND PICKY AND FAT! I CAN SMELL MY ASSHOLE! I HATE MANNERS! FUCK!”
* Punching that guy.
* Having sex with Colin Ferrell. (Although maybe you’re not.)

But mostly I hate you for this entry, posted by ladyeve, whose location is listed as “every family dining establishment”:

You coame in to open the resturaunt. You recive your first table on Sunday ofter the southern baptsit sixit their church pews. They order their iced teas, no mimosa, it’s Sunday. They order off the cheap lunch menu. Great service. Fast Service. Check time. Payment. 10% with a card small pam[phlet to come to Jess!

Um…sic.

P.S. – Also lying? The people who post with, “I feel sorry for you guys! I am a good customer, never ask for anything, am quiet and fast and don’t bring my kids and leave a 50% tip and pay for bar drinks even though I’m only having water and I wash your car as I leave.”

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Um.

August 16, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

So this is weird:

I’m sitting in my room with my window open, and some group of people somewhere along the alley who also have their window open are periodically shouting. It really barely even registered in my consciousness for the longest time because it was so obviously just a bunch of young men watching some sort of sport (what is it? August? is that…baseball?) and cheering and groaning along with the game. You know exactly what this sounds like. Anybody who has ever accidentally wandered into a sports bar or whose older brother watched football (or…geez…I guess anybody who actually watches and likes sports themselves…that’s so weird – I almost totally didn’t even think of that last bit as a possibility) knows what I’m talking about. So, like I said, I barely noticed it and wasn’t actually paying any attention.

Until this last outburst.

So you know how it is. Silence…silence…silence…six men in unison: “OOOOOOOOOOOOH!” Right? But okay, after the latest silence, the six men in unison do their groan-of-disappointment, and then one of them shouts, “Slut!” And since then there have been no more outbursts.

Now, it’s hard to explain exactly why it is that I’m positive that he wasn’t just randomly insulting a…quarterback or…goal-fielder or…out-pitcher. Or whatever. But his shout wasn’t just one of disappointment, or frustration, or anger. It was…accusational. Personal.

Who here was called a slut? Was he or she in the room at the time? Why had there been, previously, these intermittent shouts, and why have they now so suddenly ceased? Was it a porn movie that has since ended? A football game with a yellow flag thrown for too many blowjobs on the field? What is going on? Why wasn’t I invited over?

Also, brief Manners Police Update: I was lugging two big suitcases full of clothes uptown to the new apartment, and three different people offered to help me with them – and ALL THREE of these people were uptown in my new neighborhood! YAY! I am moving to a super-duper polite neighborhood! I can’t imagine why this wasn’t listed as a bonus in the Craigslist ad. (Though one guy did just sort of grab and start helping without asking first, so I was pretty sure for a second or two there that he was stealing my suitcase. It contained my winter coats, some work shirts, and the black velvet dress that I wore to my high school senior homecoming dance. He would have been disappointed.) (Not because the dress wasn’t lovely, but because the strap is broken.)

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Hilarious Black Men

April 29, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

I got totally yelled at the other day. Or not even yelled at, but, like, venemously berated. At the time it was annoying, then funny, then annoying, and the more I think back on it the more it makes me feel both angry and somehow guilty, though he was just a crazy guy I guess and I shouldn’t be so offended, but knowing that I’m needlessly offended just makes me feel worse.

Sigh.

So Ian and I are going up the subway stairs (not up to the outside, just up from a lower level to a higher one) and it’s very busy and very crowded, and there’s a stream of people coming down and a stream of people going up, and halfway up, on the right side, there’s some dude standing there, sort of making a big blockage that everybody who is going up has to move around. So I, too, move around him. Apparently I hit him with my purse, though it couldn’t have been very violently, because I didn’t feel my purse hitting against anything at all. He says to me as I’m continuing up the stairs, very angrily, something like, “Oh, so you’re just going to smack into me with your fucking purse, then, huh?” Like I said, I didn’t even realize I’d hit anybody, so I don’t even really realize that he was talking to me until I’m basically at the top of the steps.

At this point I turn to Ian and I kind of whisper, “Was that guy talking to me?” and Ian shrugs, and I giggle a little, mostly out of surprise as how angry this guy got about it. What I didn’t realize was that the guy had apparently decided to stop blocking the stairs and come on up, and was walking basically right next to Ian.

So the guy says, “What, so it’s funny to see a black man get angry? Is that it? An angry black man is funny to you?” and continues mumbling along in this vein as he walks, only slightly faster than Ian and I, so passing by us uncomfortably slowly. I rolled my eyes (it was a reflex – I wouldn’t have done it if I could have stopped myself), but other than that I totally just ignored the guy: looked straight ahead, didn’t do or say anything, and Ian did the same. (Though there was another black guy walking just ahead of us who turned around and gave him an amused and dirty look, so I guess he thought that angry black men were funny, indeed.)

So anyway, eventually this guy passes us and Ian and I continue walking relatively slowly to increase the distance between us, and that was that. And I know I shouldn’t worry about it because he was probably crazy (like, literally crazy, not just, you know, “hey, that guy’s crazy”). But even crazy people shouldn’t be allowed to be so rude. First he blocks the way and then he’s all mean about it when I accidentally bump into him. And it was the kind of mean that you probably shouldn’t be sassy to, you know? “Oh, so it’s funny when a black man gets angry?” “No, but it’s funny when a man who is blocking my way gets so angry because I accidentally–” *Man pulls out gun and shoots me.*

So anyway, no Politeness Policeman’s Ball tickets for THAT guy.

Other than that, I saw my very first opera at the Met the other night. It was pretty but silly. (Turandot in 100 Words or Fewer, While on the Clock: Wait wait wait – she KILLS herself? Man, that’s gay. Why doncha go SING about it, you pansies?) I might be buying my first shopping center ever. That’s exciting. Don’t tell my mom – telling her was what jinxed the last one I almost bought, I think. I finished my story. That’s very exciting. Someone’s moving into our empty office space. That’s way lame. And now I’m going to go urinate.

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Manners Police on Patrol

April 7, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Two hearty commendations from the Manners Police today:

To the Young Woman on the Subway: It was certainly good of you to alert the Old Lady that she had dropped a dollar, but the thing was was really particularly mannerly about it was calling her “miss” instead of “ma’am” when you did it. She was maybe – what? – fifty decades your senior? And when she smiled and thanked you I think it was more for the “miss” than for the dollar. So good job.

To the Very Polite Man on the Elevator: You’re adorable! You’re great! And to the Other People Giggling at him When He Got Off: I know you didn’t mean it to be rude. I giggled, too. He was just cute. So you guys are okay, too.

P.S. – I totally saw the old dude from the Donald Trump show the other day. He was walking down the sidewalk near where I work (about three blocks away from the Trump Tower) wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and my first thought was, “What, they’re filming?” and then I realized, oh, right, he also had a REAL job apart from his fake TV job. He’s just, you know, working. It was weird.

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Boo.

February 15, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

What a sad, disappointing train ride home the Manners Police had tonight. I was halfway through mentally composing a glowing Police Blotter when I had to rethink the whole stupid thing.

So. I’m sitting on the outside seat of a two-person seat, reading my book. I assume that my being distracted by reading was the reason that the Old Lady with the Cane asked the girl on the inside seat if she could sit there. Before the other girl could answer I stood and said, “You can have my seat,” since, you know, I was on the outside and that seemed easier. Old Lady thanks me and I start reading again. I’m standing nearby, though, so I overhear the conversation that she has with the people around her. The characters include: Tiny Asian Girl Who Doesn’t Speak Much English (the one in the inside seat), Middle-Aged Man with a Weird Leather Hat (sitting on the end of a three-seater closest to Old Lady), and Cute Indie Girl Knitting (next to Hat Man).

Old Lady is being just adorable. Talking about how when she was young, the trains did this and this and went this way and that way. She’s talking basically to no one in particular, so Hat Man, being great, starts talking to her and asks her when that was. She says she’s not going to tell him, and he says, “Now, I know you young ladies think you can go around teasing old men like me, but that’s not very nice.” And she goes on, talking about how she was born the same day Macy’s opened or something like that, and how she’s worked there six different times in her life, and blah blah cuteness cuteness. She asks Knitting Indie if she’s married, and Indie responds, “No, not yet.” “Waiting for Mr. Right, eh? Girls wait so long these days, you could wait forever. Remember: a man isn’t born Mr. Right, he becomes Mr. Right.” Which I guess is a quote from Simone de Beauvoir that really only caught on among abusive husbands. And she starts talking about how she knitted a sweater once when she was twelve – only twelve!

“What are you knitting?”

“A hat.”

“Why don’t you knit an aqua hat?” (Indie Girl’s hat was purple.)

“Yeah…that would be nice, too.”

“You’re too young for such a dark color.”

“It’s for my roommate, actually.”

“Is she older?”

“Well, he’s a boy.”

“Oh! Oh, my. Well.”

“Yeah….”

“Purple for a man?”

Everyone was being polite! Old Lady was adorable, and Leather Hat and Indie Girl were being very nice for humoring her, and even Tiny Asian Girl was smiling and nodding and laughing a little, though it didn’t look like she was really following everything said, and her additions to the conversation weren’t particularly expansive.

Right around then, a Homeless Woman gets on the train near the end, where we can’t really see her, but where we can hear her, and starts in on her asking-for-money story, which was that she was five months pregnant and already had a two year-old and a five year-old, and wellfare was putting her case on hold for a month or something like that, and she didn’t have any food for her kids. All of which may or may not have been true, but which was a pretty good story, either way. Which is not to say I was reaching for my purse, just that she had a good story.

Old Lady: “Can you believe that? With all those charities in the city.”

Yeah, Old Lady. It’s very sad, isn’t it?

“It’s sick!”

Yes! The system certainly is flawed!

“She should be arrested!”

Yeah, she should – wait, what?

“Having more babies like that, when she’s already bleeding the taxpayers dry. It makes me sick! She’s probably a crack addict! And with a baby!”

Knitting Indie shifts uncomfortably and looks back down at her hat-to-be. I shrink up a bit inside my coat and renew my pretending-to-read act. Tiny Asian Girl looks out the window. Weird Hat sighs.

Homeless Woman starts making her way through the car, getting money here and there, while Old Lady gets meaner and meaner: “You should be arrested! You should be ashamed of yourself! She looks like a classic drug addict!” (For the record, she was pretty clean for a homeless person, wearing plain jeans and a sweatshirt, very normal looking – no red eyes, no needles sticking out of her arms. Though she was Latino, which I think was what Old Lady actually meant.) At this point, I really really want to be able to give the Woman something, but the train is packed and I’ve got a book in one hand and my other hand on the pole and my money is in my wallet in my purse behind me, smushed up against some other train rider and she’s fast approaching and then passing me and blah blah excuse excuse, I don’t give her anything.

My face is buried in my book while I stand there squirming, so I don’t really see this, but the Homeless Woman says to somebody standing behind me, “Did you call me a drug addict? I’m not a drug addict. I can’t leave my kids anywhere to get a job and I don’t have any other thing to do, but I am not a drug addict.” Then she gets off the train.

Weird Hat tells Accused Lady, “You should have told her you didn’t say it. You should stick up for yourself. It’s okay to do that.”

Accused Lady shrugs uncomfortably.

“She should be ashamed, a woman like that.”

Weird Hat nods to himself. “You give to who you want to give to. That’s all.”

The Delancy stop came up right around then, and as I got off, I heard her yelling, “Young man! Don’t stand in the doorway like that! It’s a fire hazard!”

Oh, Old Lady. You’re not rude, you’re just old and crazy and mean. Accused Lady and Tiny Asian Woman and Indie Knitter: you tried to be polite, and that’s nice. But Weird Leather Hat Man: good for you for actually being willing to say something back to her. Sure, she’s old and crazy and it would have been rude to be rude to her, but I’m glad you had more balls than any of the rest of us. I’m glad you said something, at least. And were still polite about it.

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The Politest Place On Earth

February 11, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

545 Madison Avenue has got to be the politest building in New York City. The doorman knows me, though I’ve only been there maybe a dozen times in the past six months, and greets me and pushes the elevator button for the floor that he knows I’m heading to when he sees me coming. The doorman in my own building alternates between calling me Jessica, Veronica, Jennifer, Valerie, and once, ridiculously, Mrs. Miller. Sometimes he just greets me by my phone number. “Morning, thirty-three-hundred.” “Morning, fuckhead.”

The people who work at 545 are great, too: they hold doors, they say excuse me, they make random eye contact and smile. Nobody else in the city does that – the random eye contact bit. One old man went out of his way to pick up a glove that I had dropped and was obviously going for myself, anyway. They say good afternoon and have a nice day. It is a magical place.

Tomorrow Ian and I are going to go see the unfurling of the Jean-Claude and Christo thing at Central Park (if we manage to get up early enough), and then we’re going to the Museum of Sex. I saw a clot of tiny blonde girls today carrying American Girl Place bags and it randomly struck me that maybe I want to go there, so maybe we’ll go there, too. I haven’t been to FAO Schwartz since it reopened (or ever, actually) for that matter. Maybe it’ll be a whole touristy trip tomorrow. It’s sort of our Valentine’s Day thing. Or the Museum of Sex is, anyway. The rest of it’s just random crap, but Valentine’s Day is as good an excuse as any, I guess.

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Rude-o!

February 10, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | No comments

Ugh. God. You’re so rude. (Not god – this other dude.)

Ugh. I can’t even articulate how rude you were.

No – wait – yeah, okay, I can.

Chinese-Food Delivery Person rings the office bell. I buzz him in. I attempt to tell him that I didn’t order anything, but he’s talking on his cell phone. Doesn’t look at me, speak to me, make eye contact with me, anything. Sort of stands by the open office door and talks on his phone.

All right.

So I ignore him as well and continue working. He comes closer toward my desk and sets his bag of food down on the little counter in front of me. I again attempt to tell him that I didn’t order anything, but he’s still not looking at me, speaking on his cell phone, like I don’t exist at all.

All right.

So I get back to my work. At some point I realize that the person he’s talking to on the phone is the person that he’s supposed to be delivering the food to. So he already KNOWS that he’s in the wrong office, right? What the FUCK? He’s just RESTING here for a moment? “Right…right…460 Park Avenue. Yeah, but what room number? 4…433. Oh, okay, room 433. Right.”

So he picks his bag back up, walks out the door, and leaves – STILL not having spoking to me or looked at me once. Didn’t apologize certainly, for interrupting.

GGGGGGGGGGGGFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRSLDKJFISDNSSSSLDKMMMMMM. God. How fucking hard is it to just look up and say, “Sorry,” or “Thanks,” or “My mistake – wrong room” or “I’m a rude duchebag. It’s not really my fault, I was just brought up poorly. Then again, I’ve certainly been living in the adult world long enough to have learned better by now, so I suppose really it is my fault after all. Man, I guess I should work on that. I mean, it’s not like I even have to learn to, you know, use the salad fork and the dinner fork correctly or anything, or remember which corner of a “calling card” it is that I’m supposed to turn down to indicated “Congratulations” as opposed to “Get well soon.” All I really have to learn is just some decency, really. To respect other people’s worth. You know, to acknowledge that there is another human being in the room with me. I don’t even have to be sincere in my apology, but just saying it is a gesture of respect that I really ought to have learned by now. Gosh, I’m a fucking douche.”

Ugh. Why am I so easily upset by this? People are HORRIBLE and I HATE them. I hate them I hate them I hate them and I want to get drunk on champagne and not be at work and CERTAINLY not be at work all day today with Beeler here, going through his fucking old mail, which, christ, just pay your bills on time, okay? Arg. I LIKE being alone all day. I don’t want other people moving into this office. I DON’T want Beeler to feel like he ought to actually try to come in every day, and ESPECIALLY not before, say, 4:30. I hate people I hate people I hate people. I want champagne and Mexican food. I want to go home and read my new book. Blegh. I want to know who this Hil person is, this tiny giggly Asian woman that is meeting with Beeler who won’t say what company she’s from. Is she really a hooker, like I suspect? God, I hope she’s a hooker. Dear God, if you please please please let her be a hooker and let Beeler be meeting with her to discuss hooking business, to like set up an appointment or oh Dear God please to have one, I promise I’ll stop complaining about not having any Mexican food or champagne. I’ll go buy some and shut up about it. And I’ll stop complaining about rude people. I’ll be nice and sweet and polite to everyone I meet, forever, and I’ll never complain about rude people ever again, ever. But I want to see it! Or hear it, at least. Thank you, God. Amen.

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Mmmmm…mannerly

February 9, 2005 in Uncategorized by Jessica | 1 comment

Manners Police Update:

Ah, Post Office, you continue to surprise me! This time, pleasantly.

So there’s a little Post Office truck that sits on the corner outside my office building most days, selling stamps and taking small packages and doing little things. I’d never used it before, but I needed stamps, so I decided to buy them there today. (And first of all, they were selling Isamu Noguchi stamps, which is superneat. Lucky ConEd, who gets my pretty stamps.) The woman working in the truck was absolutely great! So I go up, I ask for a sheet of Isamu Noguchi stamps, and she says, “They’re very pretty, aren’t they?” and I agree. She hands me the stamps, where are sort of wide and don’t fit through the window perfectly, and she apologizes! “No, no, no problem,” I tell her, flabbergasted. I give her $20.40 for them (they cost $7.40) and she counts out my change out loud and hands it to me and tells me, “Thanks, have a nice day.” “Thanks! You too!” “Thank you,” she replies.

!

Yes, it’s true! She was great! A Post Office employee! Maybe it’s just the building, the actual Post Office that turns them all into bitter, slow, hateful vermin. (I tried out a lot of different words there in place of “vermin” – wolves, snakes, weasels, rats – but they all seemed too intelligent for exactly what I had in mind. Vermin still isn’t quite stupid enough, but it’s closer.)

So, thank you, Post Office Truck Woman. You get a nice framed Certificate of Polititude from the Politeness Force. You rock.

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