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.

N.Y.U.ME.

Sunday was a long day for me. Five-and-a-half hour drive. Two hour train ride. Bee sting dramarama.

But there seriously is nothing like coming home to a city you love.

As we zoomed down 5th Ave, the cab windows open, hitting every green light, a sneaky, involuntary smile found its way to my face, surprising me.

$7.40 later, I was in my ‘hood. The evening was quite lovely - balmy yet oddly cool. I took a deep breath and thought how unabashedly happy I was to be back in NYC.

Then I saw them...swarms of them. Gaggles of new NYU students hanging in the street, meeting and greeting, sizing up one another.

I’d taken for granted how positively peaceful - well, relatively speaking - my street had been for the past three months. No cacophonous kiddies keeping me up, yo!

But with the advent of my most hated season (fine, second most hated), so too come the students. A new influx of freshmen to judge and be judged by (sure, I’m eight years their senior but I’m still a girl).

Thankfully I missed move-in day. Last year was a nightmare - albeit a fairly informative nightmare. I learned that streets in the Village also moonlight as parking lots. New York likes to multitask.

And the SIDEWALKS!! As if they’re not already difficult enough to navigate with all the stupid tourists, they become borderline impenetrable. These kids travel in posses so big it’s like walking behind a herd of elephants.

And, unluckily for me, they’re just as loud.

Not to be too much of a square or anything, but seriously. It’s just not cool to be rudely awakened in the middle of a Sunday night. Especially when your name is Katie Parry and you’ve been - unsuccessfully -willing your body to sleep for hours.

No thank you, shitload of screeching girls.

Nor do I appreciate the inundation of my neighborhood go-to’s. No, I don’t want to wait an hour for a mani-pedi. Um, I am actually legal and don’t want to hang with underagers at Off the Wagon (they just make me feel old). Joe’s pizza has a long enough line without you little shits.

When it comes down to it, though, I’m not sure it’s my close proximity to Teens Gone Wild, New York City redux. Or the fact that they take up so much space. Or that they insist on being loud little assholes when I’m trying to get my beauty sleep. Or that they make parking lots of my streets. 

No. I think what irks me most is the jealousy. They are just beginning an adventure that’s no doubt gonna be on their short list of Life’s Best Experiences.

They’re making new friends and having all sorts of ridiculous, life-changing escapades as I write this (rewatching Mad Men was the highlight of my evening). Perhaps they just puffed their first joint, chugged their first warm Natty, or had their first co-ed sleepover.

No parents, no rules!
They’re all so very young and have so very much to look forward to and I just want to tell them, all of them, even the skanks I just saw going out wearing matching sequined dresses and five-inch heels, to keep their eyes wide open the whole time and not blink because it really will be over before you know it and there’s nothing you can do to get it back. 

Today is September 1st. New Year’s Day on Kathy Cobb’s ideal calendar. I have had two days with these kids and they’re already pissing me off a whole hell of a lot with their über short skirts and their stupid lanyards with their IDs around their necks and their pack-like herds and their incessant shouting.
But again, I guess what it comes down to is that I’m absurdly jealous of this adventure they’re embarking on. And I’m utterly stupefied that my time as a frosh at Muhlenberg College already came and went and that _____ (a lot) of years ago.

Sure, they’re assholes. But I guess they’re allowed to be. They have just started their freshmen year of college, after all. I guess I just wish for the sake of my melatonin-deficient brain that NYU’s campus was in one of the other four burroughs.

The (Wasp) Sting

Thanks to the graciously obliging Schopp family, Ri and I squeezed one last Cape weekend into this crazy-busy summer. A final hurrah. Sayanorah summatime.
(By now you should all know that I’m a self-proclaimed autumn abhorrer...however, I am trying. There are, after all, Mellowcreme pumpkins and hot cider to look forward to.)
But that damn Danny boy ruined it for us. He poured all over our vacation parade.
I hate you Danny.
Alas, we did get in about three hours of beach time. I devoured an amazing book, This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper. My team kicked butt at Pictionary (though the losers are loath to admit it). We alternately danced and froze our asses off at The Beachcomber.
And, to sweeten up our rain-induced bitterness, Colleen whipped up a homemade carrot cake. In between her double shift. After doing laundry. And grocery shopping. And making her infamous buffalo chicken dip. You go girl!
(Yes, we ate our rainy day feelings.)

All in all, ‘twas a lovely, albeit wet, weekend.
Until I was ruthlessly attacked by a vengeful, venomous, vehement yellowjacket.

The scene: Ri and I putting recyclables (aka bags and bags and bags of beer bottles) into the cans out back - innocent partiers helping to clean up.

But to those nasty ass wasps, we were alien invaders entering their comfortable garbage-can home.

Suddenly there was a searing pain in my shoulder. I looked down and started shrieking and dancing around. Then I was screaming and frantically blowing and swatting at my arm.


Somehow, some way, a sneaky little yellowjacket had taken it upon himself to sting the shit out of my shirted shoulder. Didn’t think it was possible to sting through a thick cotton shirt? Neither did I. But believe me, it is.

Oh man, it is.

Ass aimed at my red shirt like a bull’s horns at a matador, that sucker really gave it to me. His little body was bent in half with a resolute effort to heave his stinger into to my shoulder. That's how hard he was trying.

If I didn’t hate the shit out of that yellowjacket, I’d have given him props for protecting his brood and his food with such tenacity. Cause HE DID NOT LET GO. And I did not stop hopping and screaming until Ri (brave friend-o-mine) flicked the bastard away.
I cannot rightly remember the last time I was stung by a wasp. Sure, there’s always the handful of baby yellowjacket stings around my parents pool. But those infants are dumb and bumbling and use their half-ass stingers half-assedly. Their stings hurt, sure, but it’s more like a horse-fly hurt.

Big bad adult yellowjacket stings hurt like whoa. Like unbelievable, infinitesimal whoa. Like nothing’s hurt me that bad in a long, looooong time. I’d rather get my blood taken every day for a week or have five flu shots than get stung by one of those mother suckers.

Twelve hours later, it was still bothering me. The worst part was the combination of horrific feelings. Painfully hot and sore. Itchy and uncomfortable. Throbbing and red. Even my goddamn shoulder muscle was killing me.

Twenty-four hours. Still hurting.
I guess I really can’t talk shit about those eleven-year-olds who cry like babies when they’re stung cause boy oh boy I really felt like I was thisclose to crying and fifteen years wasn’t much of an excuse at all. 

Worst part? That little dastardly yellowjacket, unlike its cousin the bee, will live to sting another day.

SAND, man!

Do you ever wish you could go back and change the past? Tell your girlfriend that she looked beautiful, not bountiful? Enthusiastically ensure your boss his idea was cataclysmic, not catatonic? Rhapsodize, not repulsorize, your friend’s wedding dress? (Fine, that last one was stretching it.)

Well my friends, we’re only human. We’re not perfect. We all wish we could take back events from our past. Redo them. I know I had many moments just this summer I would like a do-over for.

Indeedy, just like that bone-chilling, boom-boom-cracking last night (was that unbelievable or what?), specific momentitos are crashing and flashing before my eyes.

(You are going to judge the shit out of me in exactly five seconds...yep, I counted how long it takes to read the next sentence.)

Yes, yes my dearest comrades. There were dozens upon dozens of times this summer that...that...that...I wished there was such a thing as a sandless beach. And, sad face, those are expired experiences that I cannot redo nor relive. Sigh.
If given the chance, though, I promise I’d be better about bitching. I promise I’d be perfectly perfect and not whine or complain or go bonkers one bit. If only I could have a do-over, if only I could go back to Nauset Light or Craigville or Misquamicut or Longport or Sullivan’s Island, I promise, Girl Scout’s Honor, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-pinky-swear that I wouldn’t utter a peep about the sand all over my bags n’ bod. 

I can’t tell you many seconds, minutes, wasted breaths, senseless air time with an imaginary mike in my hands I’ve spent grumbling, bellyaching, and cursing about how stupid sand gets everywhere. This summer especially! (Maybe that’s just because I’ve beached up up a whole lot more than I have in a long, long time. I know – I’m a brat.)
Seriously though. Sand is like air the way it encompasses you, coats you, cloaks you in a fine mist; how those finely granulated rock and mineral particles infiltrate your bags, your hair, your bathing suit; how, like birdseed on honey, those teeny tiny grits glue themselves to your wet, sunscreened, oiled up skin.

And don’t let go.

But I must say that perhaps my hatred is only on the surface – albeit a sand-encrusted-skin surface.

You see, last week when I was on my nightmare train trek back to the city, I opened my book and out fell – can you guess? – particles of Cape Cod beachness. And I smiled.

If sand granules could make me smile in the midst of a miserable Metro North experience, I guess life really is a beach.

Stinky Sidewalk Soup

Hallelujah. Amen. Color me happy. Omfgees. Shit yo! It’s actually been NICE for more than two days together!!

Is that you, summer?

Yes. Yes I do believe it is.

I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say we’ve all been wishing and hoping and thinking and praying for beautiful, warm weather. And yet...and yet.

Ignorance is bliss. Fo sho. That is to say, we were all ignorant of the stench that descends upon this lovely little city of ours when it’s hot. And that was certainly blissful.

But apparently we cannot have our cake and eat it too.

No, no. Apparently we have to make do with the stinky street soup that inundates our nostrils when heat and humidity settle upon us.

One whiff of that virulent pottage and I want to faint. Or maybe I just want to faint because I’m asphyxiating myself with breath-holding.

Ugh.

Let’s take a look at what this street n’ sidewalk stew consists of, shall we? What makes up the bouquet, if you will.

The top note is comprised of a plethora of cheap beers. Namely Bud, Bud Light, and Miller Light. These somehow end up coating (layer upon layer) the sidewalk. So much so that if I was blindfolded, I'd think I was at a college frat party.

Then of course there’s the rancid reek of urine - human and canine, obvi. There’s no excuse for those crazies pissing in phone booths! Dogs, fine. It’s not their fault their selfish owners force them into apartments the size of closets.

And then there's the occasional poop...adds some color and some texture to the soup.

Let’s not forget our proteins now, shall we? There’s plenty of dead rats and mice and pigeons and birds and bugs to go around for everyone.

Pepper in some cigarette butts and ashes, a few gnawed off pizza crusts, a McD's cup or two, and couple of loogies for flavor and you got yourself some nice ingredients for the stew!

But really, that's all just the beginning. As if all this littering and dumping wasn’t bad enough, store owners decide to up and wash the sidewalk.

The crème de la crème, the crowning glory, the goddamn consommé that pulls this foul concoction together is the soap and the water.

Why do store front owners insist on scrubbing the sidewalk? It’s a sidewalk. It’s concrete. It’s not a floor in a house.


So gross! It sends ripples of disgust through my entire body when I see someone with a hose.
Generally it’s first thing in the morning. When I’m actually clean and fresh looking, ready for work. But, oh, wait - let me just walk through a few toxic eddies and some rank, rancid puddles.

I hate hate hate that my toes get wet and I, inevitably, splash the mixture up the backs of my legs.

Please store owners, PLEASE: Stop the scrubbing, Put an end to the stinky sidewalk soup. Because I certainly am NOT ready for this gorgeous weather to end!