Nightmare on 34th Street

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Well - at least for those of us who don’t work in Midtown Manhattan it is.

My first job in this fabulous city was on 38th and Broadway. A trifecta tourist trap: Macy’s, Fashion District, Times Square.

Needless to say, I’m a much, much happier and more tolerable person now that I work in the West Village.

As cliché as it sounds, I truly am one of those people who barely ever goes above 14th Street. When I do, it’s like I’m traveling to a different country. A different world. I can never quite fathom that it’s only a couple of miles away.

But seriously, why would anyone in their right mind get caught in the 28th - 72nd Street snare? What sane New Yorker enjoys the hustle bustle that is Midtown?
I suppose I can only speak for myself, but not I. No, not me. Not one iota.

So you can only imagine my dismay when, last Friday, I was called upon to play tour guide for Trissi and Auntie Meg. Those lovely lassies brought me tons-o-treats for my Christmas Island partay (such a brat!), so I deemed it my daughterly duty to show them around the terrifying trifecta.

It could have been worse. Much, much worse. (+5 nice points for me at least acknowledging that much.)

We saw the Saks windows from a far, talked trash on the fugly-lit (!) tree at Rockefeller, poked around the kiosks at Bryant Park, then headed on down to hell. Aka Macy’s.

Our single saving grace, our one redeeming factor, was the fact that it was but mid-afternoon. The swarms of tourists hadn’t yet descended upon the city for the weekend.
(And I do mean swarms. Like biblical locusts. It’s sick.)
Well both that and the fact that it was FREEZING COLD worked to our advantage. (I said last week that I was quite enjoying the brisk temps - it is December after all. But temps in the teens with windchill? Hell to the no thanks.)
Anyway, I count my lucky stars that the lovely company that is Penguin had the wherewithal to say absolutely not to Midtown offices. Those twice-daily battles were pure, unadulterated misery.
Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if no non-NYCers were let through our city gates. Wishful thinking. Sigh. (Methinks that’s an impossibility when you live in the country’s most popular tourist destination.)

You see, people who don’t live or work in New York don’t understand. This is not a laid back city, friends. There is no lollygagging. No leisurely strolls during pre-and-post work hours. No, no, NO.
There ain’t nothing worse than Macy’s at Christmastime. Well - maybe Macy’s at Thanksgiving is worse. And maybe Rockefeller Plaza wins for Christmas.

Fine, fine, fine - a compromise: Macy’s at the holidays is just plain nightmarish. And since that is where I experienced my acutest New-York-City-dwelling misery, that is what I am talking smack about today.

Oh yes, Macy’s: I deem you #1 on my naughty NO DANKES list.

Why must you torture us so, Macy’s? I do enjoy your white lights and your nostalgic take on the Miracle on 34th Street movie - but those windows? That’s what all the fuss is about? They’re always hideous!
I don’t understand. The pushing and pulling. The smashing into people, à la mosh pit. The stepping on toes. The endless stream of not-on-purpose-I-swear! picture crashing. The never-ending people asking you to take their picture.
It’s not worth it, I say! Who wants to see stupid futuristic puppets doing nothing but spin in circles? Well, apparently my dearest darlingest family does...

But seriously! What a crap trap, people! Why are you so duped! You stup’s!!

I suppose Macy’s is really to blame in this particular sitch. The silly people who stare and ooh and aah at those stupid roboticized aliens don’t know any better. They come in with high hopes, demanding to see fancy Christmastime windows and...
...well, OK...nevermind, they do deserve their ill-fated lot.
Who comes to New York City to look at WINDOWS? Then proceeds to wait in line in order to do so??? Nonsensical, I say.

Stop it, stores.

Stop putting silly little moving junk (that precocious little puppet with his hand to his head right there I must exclude - he has the right idea - ay dos mio!) in your windows and creating a trap de la trap for the peeps who live here.

Sidewalkblocks are not OK, ya hear?
When I was working in Midtown, the inescapable necessity to pass Macy’s tacked on countless precious minutos to my commute. Wasted moments of my life spent trying to push through a cattle car of tourists. All so they could get a glimpse and a pic of some horrendously ugly motorized puppets and some glizty, gaudy decorations.

Stick to the movie if you want to see a Miracle on 34th Street. Black and white makes everything vastly more appealing. And palatable.

The reality of 34th Street is nada but a nightmare.

Losing My Marbles.

One would think that the prospect of a four day weekend would incite an aura of rest and relaxation in the ole noggin.
However, I spent a very great deal of time these last four days Stressed. (Please notice the capital S.)
Methinks I really am losing my marbles. Like, really. Just call me Tootles. I know that I wrote a blog about being forgetful. But this is beyond forgetful. We’s talking huge chunks of my temporal lobe breaking off from the rest of my brain. No joke.
It all started Friday night. I was having a little Christmas Island party at my apartment (best holiday song ever!) and of course I was running late. In my mad dash to get dressed, makeup-ed, food set up, drinks set up - I overlooked my pearl earrings sitting on the bathroom sink counter.

Buzzers were ringing, guests arriving, champagne buzz was setting in, and I’d finally finished my hair. I set my straightener down to cool & exited the b-room in one fell swoop - hearing as I did so a little clink, clank, clunk.

Pearl earring down! The drain, that is.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Whaaaaaaaaaaaat??? Did that really just happen?

Yes, Katie. Yes it did.

From there on out, my weekend - my mind - spiraled out of control. I was on a freight train speeding to a town called Forgetful and there was no turning back.

I barricaded my sink - luckily the drunken Islanders abided by the rules! My pearl was safe and sound in the dodgy, dirty, undoubtedly hair-ridden U hook of those ancient pipes.

At least I hoped it was!


I called Rocky the Super the next day - lucky for me he was around - and after scolding me for not taking all my junk out from the cabinet underneath, he set to it.

Sinks are disgusting. Well, let me rephrase. The shit that goes down a sink’s drain is disgusting. Horrendous. Or, rather, hair-rendous. IIIIICK. Rocky yelled at me some more, but it’s not like I do it on purpose! Hair falls out. Especially when you blow dry it. And it’s not like I can keep the daily lossage allotment from escaping down the sink!
Nevertheless, amidst the hair and the brown water spilling all over my cabinets and onto my super clean (no longer!) bathroom floor, THERE WAS MY PEARL!!!!! Omgees, Lady Luck indeedy!

That is, until I realized I’d lost the other pearl. The non-down-the-drain earring. The one that was left on the counter.

I remember picking it up when Rocky came in. But everything that transpired henceforth went poof!, right from my mind.

I proceeded to spend the next three hours scouring and searching and tearing apart and digging. All to no avail. Was this real life? I couldn’t believe it. To rescue one pearl earring from the impossibly vile depths of a bathroom sink pipe (which ended up cracking so I haven’t been able to use it all weekend), only to LOSE its comrade in my apartment. What.
I had no.idea.whatsoever. where the hell it had gone. So I called my mom - aka Santa - to see if it was too late to ask for a new pair for Christmas.
“Yes, Mom, I looked there. Yep. Yeah. Of course I looked there. Yup. Mmm hmm. YES, I did looked through the trash already. Twice!”

Alas, she knows me better than I know myself and suggested I look through the trash once more - wearing gloves. (My ladylike hands do not like to touch garbage - even if it is all mine.)

There was coffee grinds and barbeque chicken/sweet and sour meatball sauce and dirty, hair ridden paper towels and it was just...nasty. But latex gloved and therefore safe, I set out feeling my way through the trash.

Lo and behold!, I found the earring. What? WHAT! One pearl retrieved from a filthy, hairy abyss, only to find its mate amidst soggy coffee and stinky, sticky BBQ sauce.

So to recap, I’ve survived a weekend sans bathroom sink. I’ve ended up with a stubbed, swollen toe (a board that was under the sink fell on my foot), a messy, messy bathroom floor (I have so many products), and a spittle filled kitchen sink.
Ever try brushing your teeth and washing your face in your kitchen sink? Amongst dirty plates and dish brushes? So unbearably uncivilized. (It’s kind of nuts how barbaric it is. You just feel like such a dirty little slime ball, YUCK!)
But my weekend of lost-marbles hell didn’t end with the earring dramarama. Oh no. The memory gods had it out for me. As if my feeble, forgetful mind hadn’t failed me quite enough already, it had to go and disremember where I put my brand spanking new iPod earbuds.

I searched and researched every square inch - all 2,016 of them - for the second day in a row. Drawers upon drawers, hidden surfaces upon hidden subsurfaces, all without a stitch of the same luck that befell me during Saturday’s (mis)adventures.
My mind is going, going, oh wait - no - actually it’s gone. No dankes.
(An addendum: Shortly after I’d finished writing this blog last night, my lovely friend Dana, a sharpshooting pool hustler, sent me a message - she had the headphones all along! Silly lass dropped her bag at my apartment Friday night and must have scooped them up by accident! So really my marbles are only half gone.)

Giving Dankes

I know, I know. I’m the world’s most gigantic hypocrite. Just last week I was hemming and hawing about establishments rolling out the trees n’ tinsel before Halloween is even over.
And this week - get ready for it - I’m a Christmastime Convert.

Maybe it’s cause I just had to oust those in-your-face bags-o-decorations piled up, eyesore-style, on my floor. Or perhaps it was Monday’s fa-fa-fa-reeeeezing temps. But whatever the reason - GASP - I’ve stopped to smell the mistletoe (or started to, I should say).

You heard it here first! I shall be no Grinch. No Scrooge. No Bumble. No Professor Hinkle. Not me, not this year!

Ooookaaaaaay fine. Ya’lls know that Scrooge-free does NOT begin with me. And my Grinch-o-Meter definitely hasn’t plummeted to zero.

But let’s just say (sure, relish in judging the shit out of me), as I was putting ornaments on my mini-tree Monday night (isn’t it cute?), listening to Frank and Bing croon (and maybe a little Celine), my brand new XXXL heart melted and warmth oozed throughout my frigid body.

Thanksgiving is upon us, peeps. It’s here. And four weekends till Christmas, me oh me oh my!

And so for the (?) time in No Dankes! history, I’s gonna write something nice.
It’s Turkey Day so let’s all play pilgrims and GIVE THANKS!

(Here I pause. And pause. And pause some more. It’s interesting that I - and I fear I am not alone - can speak so freely about things that bother me, annoy me, piss me off, things that I detest...but when it comes to ponies and flowers and rainbows...well...I pause.)

Some time later...

I put on my thinking cap and came up with some thanks. Herewith, ladies and gentlemen, are things I am dankesful for.

There’s the majorly maaaaayjaaaaahly fantabulous things in my life - not to be trivialized one bit - but since they’re fairly obvi, I shall skipperoo through them: Tim, Tris, Timmy, my Morrell side & my Parry side (3 grandparents, 10 uncles, 12 aunts, 1 great-aunt, 24 cousins, 3 baby cousins-once-removed, 2 cousins-in-law...I don’t know the names for the rest), my best friends, my friends, my job, my health, our servicemen & women, the health of all of the aforementioned, the long life of my most beloved pet pooch, Cooper.


Life.

Yesterday I spent 4 1/2 hours in the emergency room at St. Vincent’s Hospital. I’ll NO Dankes! that experience next week, but it was jarringly (sur)real and not just a little shocking to be surrounding by such sickness. Old people, dying people, lonely people. Talk about de-press-ing.
I really think we all sometimes forget how fleeting all of this is.

Not to be macabre, but we need to remind ourselves that we’re mere mortals. That our entire lifetime is but a blink, a blip, in this ever-expanding, billions-of-years-old universe.
I devour classic literature (all Penguin, of course!) - and it’s quite astonishing to a 21st century reader to see how at ease our ancestors were with death.

This gravestone inscription (morbid, I know), really resonated with me: “As you are now so once was I, As I am now so shall you be.” Whoa.

I’m not trying to sound all preachy, but ’tis true. It’s so easy to forget how wonderful life is. To get so caught up in cattiness and bitterness and anger and disappointment and side-choosing and shit-talking and what-ifs. Just think about it.

And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Onward we go to the bright, light side of life’s more leisurely amenities that I am utmost thankful for. These include (but are not limited to) the following:
Indoor plumbing! We are so lucky. Bubble baths. Razors. High-pressure massaging shower heads. Hell, massages. Gooseneck sink spouts. Brita’s.

Flat-screen TVs. DVR (can you believe we used to watch VCR recorded VHS’s?) Almost all cable shows (and some network shows). Mad Men. Black and white movies - OMG, TCM! Hollywood glamour. Hollywood drama. Audrey, Ingrid, Grace, Marilyn, Kate & Gwyneth. Cary Grant, Paul Newman, James Stewart, Brad/Leo/Robert Pattinson/John Hamm. NETFLIX!

Computers. MacBooks!!!!!!!!!!! (Life changing.) iPods. (How did we live WITHOUT them?????) iPhones for that matter. Le Internet.
Whole Foods cold/hot food & dessert bar. Funfetti cupcakes. The fact that apples with peanut butter are considered “healthy”. Skor Bars. Peanut Butter Twix Bars. Joe’s Pizza. A really, really good sandwich comprised of no less than 15 ingredients. The World’s Best Latte (according to moi) from Third Rail Coffee - which happens to be right next to my apartamento. Rootbeer. Pumpkin beer. Wheat beer. Blueberry beer. Any beer. Vin rouge.

Books, books, omfg books! Tolstoy, Austen, Hardy, Steinbeck, the Brontë sisters, Gaskell, Dickens. Hosseini, Diaz, Chevalier, Shreve, McEwan, McCarthy, MEYER. amazon.com (though it’s nearly singlehandedly undermining the publishing industry).
Coconut everything: lip balm, cake, lotion, mmm macaroons, milk, rum, haystacks, rice, piña coladas, body spray, oil, shampoo.

Trains, planes, automobiles! Or, modes more apt to this city: subways, cabs, and my own two feet!

The City. My hometown in the NWC deserves some love, too: Sharon, CT. I’m so thankful I grew up there. The historic beauty - the clock tower, the town green, the gorgeous mansions. The trees and rolling hills and lakes and quietness and serenity and lushness.
I’m extra thankful for Sharon, actually. And so happy that I get to go home in just a few hours to my quaint country town - dankes Penguin for a 1:00pm closing! I cannot wait to spend time with my fam (wish you could be there, Timmy & Cass!), and friends.

And Cooper, my darling pup. I’m thankful for the 15 1/2 years we got to spend with you. I’ll miss bestowing your Thanksgiving Feast at those ridiculously well-behaved paws. We’ll all be thinking of you on this, your most favorite day of the year. Love and miss you so much, buddy.
Now I challenge you to give dankes. And I implore you: Take some time tomorrow to be in the moment, living. Don’t get all anxious about traffic, or being late, or eating so much you’ve gotta do the unbutton, or missing the kickoff, or burning the biscuits. Big deal. So what.

Appreciate what you have, remember how lucky we all are, and just be happy. Don’t sweat the small stuff, yo! Cause everybody’s clocks are ticking and that’s some pretty scary shit but we’re all in this together.
(Oh, and one last thing. I’m thankful for all of you who read this blog and for your support and enthusiasm and encouragement. It honestly does mean more than you know! Happy a safe, hearty, HAPPY Dankesgiving!!!)

What Was Your Name Again?

Now we all know that I’m über forgetful. But I am working on it. I’s taking me some B12 vitaminos and drinking some ginkgo bilbolabilobia whatever tea.

Alas, it seems I have an especially acute aversion to names.

People’s names, that is.

Oh yeah, all is well and good and I’m super smiley and polite and toss peeps a good handshake when I first meet them.
But something quite peculiar comes over me when they divulge their name. No matter how hard I try to listen, try to pay attention, try to memorize...my brain simply rejects names.
Picture an hourglass. To me, names are like them there grains of sand, passing on through. Slipping on by. In one side and right out the other.

Thomas.Carly.Emily.Michael.Sabrina.Justin.Trevor.Allison. Bye, bye!

It’s really pretty awful. I can.not.retain. I am retention-retarded. And it’s embarrassing.

The worst, the absolute positive worst is when I’m being introduced person by person to a big group. Oh this one and that one. I’m obviously polite. But there’s a secret I keep to my super snarky self: that gleaming smile I plaster on my face is so big and broad, not because I’m so very super friendly, but because I am laughing so hard at my ridiculous forgetfulness.
There’s nothing to do but laugh. It’s so goddamn hilarious! My nada-name-retention-retardation is so outrageously horrific, I can’t even remember names of characters on TV shows that I’ve been watching for years.
I’m a diseased person, I tell you. Diseased. My brain is putt-putting and petering our right before my very eyes - er, behind them I suppose.

I turn green with envy in the presence of people who remember names.

The waiter’s name? Yeah right.
The new coworker’s name? Ha.

The guy I woke up in bed next to? Fat chance.

(Just joshing! Oh it was Josh, duh!)

No but for reals. It is a full on disability. Why can’t people walk around with their names taped to their foreheads?

And yes, I do mean foreheads - while it may be convenient to pin or hang or tape your name to your chest, looking down to figure out someone’s name is a bit too obvious. And not just a little insulting.

Either that or I need some sort of computer chip installed in my head - one that registers faces and sends a signal to my brain, à la Morse code, to remind me of the person’s name.

Oh I don’t know what’s worse - forgetting someone’s name or calling them by a wrong name.

I suppose they’re equally bad - at least for me. Cause either way, if you tell me your name, I shall undoubtedly, 100%, without fail be counted upon to forget it.

“Trick” Indeed

Maybe it’s just that I’m getting up there in years, that I’m so far removed from anything “kid”. I mean, I have been an “adult” for quite some time now. Kinda. (Kelly and I carved that cute little owl pumpkin!)

But seriously, what has happened to Halloween? Where did it go?
It’s become such a manufactured holiday. Like every single other holiday out there, it has been engineered to make money for candy (and costume) corporations. But it’s also become synonymous with “slutty” - a day fully dedicated to socially acceptable skanks. So sad.

Everyone jokes how it’s the one day a year that it’s actually OK (and legal) to dress like a prostitute, but I find the dime-a-dozen minidress-donning French maids, flight attendants, nurses/cops/Playboy bunnies/cats and witches so boring. So unoriginal. So annoying.

Has my memory once again left me high and dry? Perhaps. But I don’t recall such “sexy” costumes being a staple of yesteryear Halloweens.

Maybe it’s New York that’s done it to me. It’s sad to see kids trick-or-treating at restaurants and coffee shops and retail stores! My Aunt Meg used to march us kids all over Danbury. Our legs would be screaming in agony from walking, our arms numb from carrying so much candy, but it was so exciting, such a good time.

Even when I was a teenager, my friends and I would have tons-o-good, clean fun! Yes, it involved some shaving cream, fine. But it was 97% innocent.

Me and my pals have always been clever costumers. We put our imagination into our outfits - along with our blood, sweat, and tears. Take college, for instance, when we dressed up as a homemade six-pack of Bud Light. We cut the material, stenciled on the logo, and colored it in. A-maz-ing.

You really just don’t see that these days. Now it’s just all-slut-all-the-time. It’s not “Oh let me spend some time thinking about what I want to be.” It’s, oh let me just go into this Halloween Super Store and pick out the most bootylicious-service-provider outfit POSSIBLE!

Where is the Halloween love? The desire to don something clever and crafty, something you won’t see on 67 other people that night.

Don’t get me wrong - of course I’ve showed a little leg and painted on thick mask of makeup on All Hallow’s Eve . I’m just saying be more original about it. Preserve the integrity of the holiday, people. Don’t buy a bagged costume, buy a dress on EBay and make your costume around it, like I did this year.

Well, I can’t really take credit for the idea - we were Super Mario Land at work (the winning department!), so I just recycled my Princess Peach costume. But it was original - that dress was definitely a one-of-a-kind from the 80s.

But my smartypants friends actually made their costumes. Take for instance: Ri and Katie Leo as Dominoes, Jared and Mike as Tetris pieces, Burke as a Rockette, Kelly as Holly Golightly, Michelle as Taylor Swift (on the weekend).

It was so refreshing to be at a party where so many people put so much thought and time into their costumes. Bravo!

I don’t know, I guess I’m just disappointed in the commercialism of Halloween, the way it has become. It used to be so pure and fun, like Hocus Pocus.

Now it’s nada but hussies and harlots, “tricks” if you will, walking the streets on October 31st. (With a side of mellowcreme stomachaches and skull funnel headaches.)

Faded Black is NOT the New Black

Thank you Coco Chanel for institutionalizing the Little Black Dress (and the color black for that matter).



Now it’s not like I’m one of those girls who wears all black all the time. In fact, I would much rather don neon or jewel hues. Purple, orange, hot pink, kelly green. I love me some color!

I think it’s borderline obnoxious that some New Yorkers don’t flirt with color. That they wear onyx “uniforms” every.single.day. Live a little, people!

They can be boring, fine. What irks me most about these uptight, unoriginal, indigenous NYCers is the fact that their blacks are always so black.

The only obvious reason for such brilliant blacks (said in the least oxymoronic way possible, as if a non-color could be brilliant), is that these single-color-minded people are wealthy. They’s got the big bucks so they can afford to buy a gazillion blouses and slacks and knits and skirts and LBD’s.

Yes, that must be it. There are just so many clothes in their unilateral wardrobe rotation that each article gets plucked from obscurity once every two or three months. Hence the non-faded-blacks.

Alas, the greater part of the population, we peasants - whose apartments are 1/8 the size of aforementioneds’ walk-in closets - are forced to wash our blacks every other week. And what happens when blacks are washed too often? Anyone? Anyone?

They fade.

Selfish, malicious, malevolent cotton! Frankly I don’t give a damn if it’s the fabric our lives! It ain’t the fabric of my life!



OK that’s a lie...I love cotton. Especially when it’s soft and loose and flowy and stretchy (Thanksgiving countdown, YIKES!)

But what I don’t love about that popularity-contest-winning fabric is that it can never seem to get its shit together.

Quit losing your dye, cotton. Stop fading when I wash your soiled little ass. I don’t appreciate it.
Nothing says frump-de-la-dump more than bleached, blanched, washed out, lackluster black.
Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to faded-out fabric because I suffered through ten months of incessant black wearing at Bloomingdale’s. A lot of retail stores - or maybe just Federated Department Stores - make their employees don monochromatic ebony ensembles. 

(I find this fact fairly funny - wouldn’t it be far more interesting if we modeled the goods on the sales-floor?)

Nevertheless, I bought up lots-o-black. White House Black Market scooped up a ton of my moolah.

I wore and washed and rewore and rewashed. And all the while, I played by the rules - color safe detergent, cold water - hell, it’s not like there were even other colors to mess with my laundry loads, THEY WERE NADA BUT BLACK.

All to no avail. It didn’t make any difference that I Woolite-d because no matter what, black clothes fade like a mofo. There’s no helping it. There’s nothing you can do.

I had an extremely productive day yesterday (shocking, seeing as how we tailgated Ivy-League-style all day Saturday!) - and ended the nonstop madness with a grocery trip to my new fave Whole Foods haunt (Bowery).

Let it be said that I don’t condone sweatpants in public, but yoga pants are permissible. So I was bumming around in my circa 2002 Hard Tails - which have significantly altered from their original onyx state. They’re soft, yes, but they’ve diminished to a fairly embarrassing dark grey.
I contemplated changing. Wrestled with myself back and forth, to and fro, pros and cons - it was a struggle, but in the end I let my faded flag fly! (My anxiety for an overcrowded Whole Foods the longer I waited and debated outweighed my anxiety for strangers seeing me in faded black pants.)

Sadly, methinks last night was their finale. Time for them to retire, to be relegated to apartment-only status.

Sob, sob, sniffle, sob, sob, but ’tis true. There comes a time in the life of a black cotton staple that you just gotta let go.

Preferably you, the owner, will see the time is near, will realize it, and will wrap that shit up before you’re seen schmoozing in a black-cum-charcoal tee. Because faded black anything - well, in the wise words of Liz Lemon, “That’s a dealbreaker!”

They should sell black laundry dye - like hair dye. Wash all your blacks in this special detergent/dye every other month or so and voilà, no more telltale whitish, ashy, seemingly lint covered clothes!
Come on Garnier Fructis and L'Oréal Paris - think of all the money you and Tide could make if you tag teamed!

The Trouble With Turnstiles

Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just have a serious aversion to office building gateways. Exhibit A: disdain for revolving. Exhibit B: lack of enthusiasm for elevators.

And now, drum roll please, Exhibit C: hostility towards…turnstiles.
Turnstiles, as we know them, were introduced at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair. Ingenious mechanisms, insert a coin and gain passage through the three armed monster!
The concept of these loathsome machines hasn’t changed all that much in 70+ years. Their ingeniousness has translated to staying power. But just because they’re good at restricting access to people who have paid (as in subways or stadiums), or people who are authorized (as in Manhattan office buildings), doesn’t mean they deserve an A+.

Turnstiles – apparently also known as “baffle gates” – can be EXTREMELY…well…baffling. Unbelievable, I say! Frustrating. Exasperating. Annoying.

They’re vindictive little shits. Always, always, always on a power trip. “Oops, sorry. You’re gonna miss that subway, buddy, cause you monthly card just expired.”

Or, “Tsk, tsk, that microchip in your ID card ain’t working, to the front desk you go!”

“Five cents short? NO ADMITTANCE FOR YOU!”

Turnstiles are simply inescapable in our world. Amusement parks, concert venues, stadiums, subways, and yes, even office buildings.
Granted, they keep count of peeps to prevent overflowing. And they’re cost-effective regulaatooooors. So yeah, they succeed at their tasks, but come on turnstiles!

There’s nothing worse than seeing the lights of an approaching train, hearing the screech of the brakes, feeling the whooshing wind – and not making it on. We know another train will be along shortly, but that’s beside the point. It’s seriously the most maddening thing in the world when you card just isn’t good enough.

Oh no. You’ll be pumped, not believing your luck, a train’s entering the station the same time as you, OMG! But Big, Bad Mr. Turnstile has got different plans for ya. Swipe, double beep, SLAM. Re.ject.ed. Furiously fumbling that MetroCard, you swipe again, rush forward, and bam...de-nied.

We should get one free pass. If the train is there, the turnstiles should just let us by. It’s blasphemous. As if the fare hike WAS NOT ENOUGH. Oh no, you’re gonna hold it against us for being five cents short? EFFFFFFFFF YOOOOOOOU TURNSTILES.

And eff you people, too. It’s really infuriating – no, stronger than infuriating…violence-inducing – when a train has arrived and people are pouring out through the turnstiles, hogging every.single.one so you can’t get in.

Clink, clank, clonk go the arms, spinning in the exact opposite direction you want them to be. You want to scream at the stupid, selfish people that won’t let you pass. You want to smack that stupid, selfish turnstile for only letting people out, not in. (There should be rules and regulations.) Come on, come on, COME ON, you want to shout (and sometimes do), while the doors are closing and the train is pulling out of the station.

It’s just not fair.

And those are only the first turnstiles of the day.

Turnstiles in offices are a different beast entirely. And I do mean beast. They shun their three armed cousins, look down on them in disgust, cause man oh man, Buddy Boy’s be automated.

Automated? Automated. You scan your ID card or your bar-coded guest pass, two arms open outwardly, and you zoom into the super special, closed-off universe that is a New York City (or any city) office.

That is, of course, if you manage not to get caught. For these more futuristic turnstiles are pretty terrifying. They shriek at you, literally a high-pitched, buzzing-honking shriek, if you even THINK about TRYING to get by their super sensitive sensors.

They snap at you if you’re lollygagging and don’t walk through fast enough (ever wonder why NYCers are speed demons?), or if you are too lazy to bust out your ID card and try to creep in on the heels of someone else.

And beware: these turnstiles and their fangs (aka their two bitchy little arms) WILL bite you if you get too close for comfort. Yes indeed. They will snap shut on you in a second. I’ve witnessed peeps getting caught - YIKES.

I could care less about people who don’t pay the exorbitant subway fare, or who’ve lost their building pass and need to sneak by, or if a stadium needs to count how many customers they’ve had that day. Turnstiles are just line-creating, fright-inducing, hassle-full pieces of machinery that I could, simply, do without.

Port-O-Hell

What a lovely, lovely weekend! One last hurrah before the official end of summer. And boy oh boy was there a lot of hip-hip-hurraying.

The annual German-American Friendship Day (ridiculous, I know), was last Saturday in Central Park. It took some bullying, some sneaking through gates, some getting screamed at by security, but once we were in it was all German all the time.

Steins of beers, lederhosens, bratwursts, and crazy Deutschland bands abounded. Me and my lovely lassie posse enjoyed personal pitchers-o-beer and potato pancakes.
Oh yeah. We “Zicke, zacke, zicke, zacke, hoi, hoi, hoi-ed!” all afternoon.
Let’s just say that I’m glad Germans and Americans have been reunited. It feels soooo gooood.
However. All that cheers-ing came to a screeching halt when nature came a calling.

Port-O-Potties are undoubtedly the most horrific experience known to peeing-kind. Seriously. They’re deeeesgusting. But these particular POPs were the most revolting, the most sickening, the most odious Ports I’ve ever encountered.

First, there was the ratio of boys POPs to girls POPs. There were four - FOUR - dedicated to men. And only three to women. With one handicapped. “Is this real life?” I asked myself over and over.

People, peeeeople. Don’t you understand that women pee more than men? That we take longer? That it’s a much more complicated task for us than for you?

To lighten the mood, take my mind off my bladder, I engaged in some banter with the other ladies-in-waiting. “Can you BELIEVE there’s more boys rooms than girls? They are such dummies!” But the women simply laughed and flew off on German-speaking tangents.

(It’s funny that we Americans believe the octave of our voice has a direct correlation with language comprehension. I repeated myself a few times before giving up, each repetition louder than the last.)

Then I gave up and stared blankly, shrugging, as they “Ich bin-ed” and “Hamburg! Hamburg-ed!” all over my ears. I smiled politely and eye-averted.

Yup, I was forced to wait it out sans entertainment. And then, joy of all joys, it was my turn. At last.

I seriously don’t know what I was expecting. I know Port-O-Potties are nasty-ass cesspools. But this was atrocity personified. (Of course this pic is not the one I experienced...I don’t want my handful-o-readers gagging, now!)

Never have I ever experienced such a fetid, foul, FULL Porto. It was topped off.
And the smell - ugh. A positively toxic mix of waste and reeking blue solution. Can we say N-A-S-T-A-A-A-Y?

What irked me most, though, was not the smell.

Well - fine. The stink is always the worst part about the Port. But in a veryvery close second was the fact that THERE WAS NO TOILET PAPER.

Whhhhhhy, whhhhhhhhhhhhhy?????

And of course no potable water and soap to wash my hands with.

Omg.

Unfortunately, though, my options going forward are quite limited. Cause when it comes down to it, I'm not gonna give up enjoying me some brewsky’s . I guess I’ll just have to enjoy a few more so that the Port-O-Potty usage isn’t so disturbing.

I’ll also have to re-watch Slumdog Millionaire. Nothing – nothing – could be worse than what the youngest Jamal experienced. Traumatizing. Simply traumatizing.