Not Quite a Bad Day
Lame title, but that's all I've got right now.
Today should have been a bad day. From the moment I woke up things went wrong. To start with, when I got up to the subway I found that it was closed. In New York City, when a subway entrance closes during its normal hours, they signify this by running pink ribbon across it. I’m not sure why pink, maybe they got it on sale. I went across the street to find that entrance was closed as well. That’s when I heard a guy saying on the phone that the 4, 5 and 6 lines were not running. Those three trains comprise every train line that services my fashionable and hip neighborhood.
I considered a bus but it was clear that the thousands of people who usually take those trains every morning also considered this option. They were packed like cattle cars with long lines of people on every corner waiting and hoping to squeeze on if and when the bus stopped. So I started walking. It was about a mile and a half to the closest train that ran in a cross-town and downtown-ward direction.
And had it been as cold and windy as it’s been lately, I probably would have said “screw it” and gone home to have another cup of tea. But it wasn’t bad out; it was cold but the wind must have blown itself out and it wasn’t unpleasant walking. People are fond of saying, facetiously, that they “get to spend some time with their fellow New Yorkers,” but it really was kind of nice. Along with that “get out of my way or I’ll knock you down” attitude that so many local residents (myself included) possess, there’s also a sense of “we’re all in this together.” Particularly when things suck. I myself had a conversation with a complete stranger about how local 24-hour news station NY1 sucks for not even mentioning this debacle.
So a mile and a half later I’m getting on a train that actually deposits me closer to my office than my regular train. And I’m not as righteously outraged as I should be.
But I needed some socks and underwear. I wasn’t happy with my selection of dress socks for work and I wanted some boxers with amusing designs on them. So after work I went to Macy’s, which has to be my least favorite place in the world. It’s not enough to be the biggest department store in the US, they have to make it a baffling ordeal of half-floors, absent or misleading signs, and mazes of racks and displays preventing any kind of straight line travel.
But even beyond the layout of the place, Macy’s belongs to the slack-jawed gawkers. People whom you can curse under your breath as you nudge your way past them on the sidewalk have diplomatic immunity in Macy’s. The place was designed for them, expressly set up to encourage a slow amble, a sudden stop to look at something, rapid and unpredictable changes of direction. And I can’t even get mad at them, that’s what you’re supposed to do there. Add to that the perfume counter people who will douse anyone who will let them with chemicals and soon the air is sharp and acrid and your nostrils start to burn along with your temper. I can’t get out of that place fast enough.
Of course they didn’t have any amusing underpants. They had big brand name underpants that cost as much as some of my regular pants. They had plain white boxers aplenty. Who wants to wear plain white underwear under their clothes? If you’re wearing plain white under the surface of your clothing, then what is under the surface of you?
I bolted out the door and stood on the curb drinking in the clean, pure Manhattan air, though I knew that perfume stink would follow me for a while. I needed underpants and I didn’t know what to do. And then I spied the Old Navy.
Now I know what you’re thinking: didn’t Adam move to NYC to get away from the chain stores? Wasn’t he looking for a place where homogenous national retail juggernauts’ penetration was not complete? Yes, yes that was part of it. But let’s face it, if there is a cool SoHo boutique that sells funky underwear it probably costs more than I’m willing to spend for a garment most people won’t see. I mean, how many factories are there making novelty underpants? How hard am I to look to find a pair of skivvies I’d like to get in the wash tomorrow?
So for six bucks a pair, I got a small pile of boxers that will likely wear out before I finish those three sticks of butter I have in the freezer (assuming I don’t bake anything in the near future) and I gave some money to a corporate behemoth, but I’m okay with that. The line was long but it moved fast, the bored-looking girl behind the counter signaling for the next customer as she was handing the bag to the previous customer. She rang me up correctly, ran my credit card and was starting on the next customer before I knew what hit me.
“Thanks a lot,” I said. “You’re very fast.” And she laughed and thanked me, not stopping scanning the next person’s temporary clothing.
It should have been a crappy day today, but it just didn’t quite pull it off.
More good stuff at Atomic Lunch.