Local Hero

The family, clearly tourists, push their roller suitcases under the subway turnstiles before the whole group has gone through, which is why they’re unable to prevent one of the bags from rolling down the platform and tumbling onto the tracks, just before the train entered the station. 

The train manages, impressively enough, to stop right before hitting the bag, but now we’re stuck - there’s a maroon carry-on sized bag on the tracks, and it’s Sunday, which means nobody is going to be able to come retrieve for a while, and everybody has someplace to be.

I ask if anyone has an umbrella (it has been raining today, after all), so someone volunteers their full-sized one with a traditional, curved handle, and now Katie is lying on the edge of the platform while I hold her legs as she hooks the handle of the suitcase with the umbrella and hauls it up off the tracks to an enthusiastic round of applause.

The conductor thanks Katie, pulls the train the rest of the way into the station, and everyone, including the tourist family, piles onto the train, but after a hurried discussion, the tourist family, grinning sheepishly, gets off the train before it leaves, because apparently they meant to go the other direction, into Manhattan.

Rainy Days and Scooters

“Did you find the painted stripes in the crosswalks really slippery?” Katie asks as we climb the stairs to the apartment. It’s been raining on and off for two days, and scooting down wet streets can be a hazard. 

“Yeah, I found that out yesterday. Before I even stepped on my scooter, just walking on the crosswalk I almost ate shit,” I say. 

Security

The man on the elevator leans down close to the security keypad to enter his code, and when he’s done, I enter mine.

He asks what floor, and when it turns out it’s the same as mine, he says, “So you didn’t have to enter your code.”

“Maybe, but I think that if you don’t put in your code, the alarm goes off when you open your locker,” I explain.

“No it doesn’t,” he replies, and then shakes his head sadly, as if it is his distinct misfortune to be stuck in an elevator, having a conversation with the stupidest person he’s ever met.

It’s more of an art

400 degrees seems to be the exact right temperature to roast brussels sprouts, but our oven doesn’t really measure temperatures with any exactitude. “400” on a dial seems to reflect a sort of Schrödinger’s Cat approach to measuring heat.

It’s like this: as soon as you open then oven, the actual temperature, which was absolutely not whatever temperature is indicated on the dial, changes, because you’ve let in cooler air to check the the little thermometer you hung on the middle rack in a pathetic attempt to control the chaos of this world. 

That being said, dinner tonight was really delicious, and the sprouts were crispy and tender. 

Mistrust

Katie presses the button that alerts workers at the drugstore to come over and unlock the little clear plastic doors they put over all the stuff in the aisles now. Apparently the store was getting ripped off too much, so they just locked everything up, instead of developing a method to get people what they need AND get paid for it.

When he gets there, though, she’s already figured out that the little plastic jails, inside which are all the things we need, are open. He’s walking up the aisle and she just pulls face wash out of the little box and off the shelf like it’s just a normal shelf, which it’s not.

Like We Would

The cops standing in front of the Indian restaurant on our street barely acknowledge us as we walk up. “What happened?” Katie asks, looking past them and over the crime scene tape blocking off the sidewalk.

“Some guy got stabbed,” one of them says, and sure enough we can see, in the light from the restaurant door, fresh blood on the pavement beside a small, primitive looking knife.

“Don’t touch the blood,” he adds, while another cop smirks and then, bored, looks away.

Perspective

“I gotta say, I’m having a lot of feelings about this,” I tell the technician as I pop the fasteners on the knee brace he just fit me for.  My knee complains bitterly at the change.

He nods sympathetically as I continue, “On the other hand, there’s a guy out there with just one leg, so what am I bitching about?”

“Yeah, if I’m having a hard day, I remember the people that I try to help, and my life seems a lot better.”