OneManOneCity - Musings from the Center of the Universe

OneManOneCity - Musings from the Center of the Universe

Archive for the ‘Everday Hero’ Category

Panhandling my way to work

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

For the record, I am not a morning person. I never have been, I never will be. So when a memo went around work on Friday that we had a 9:15 meeting on Monday morning (about the time I usually arrive) with an added note of, “Don’t be Late!!!”, I gave myself a million reminders to make sure I got there on time. I emailed myself, wrote myself a post-it note, and even signed up for a text messaging reminder for Sunday night. “Get into work at 9am. You are awesome!”, the reminder said (it’s always nice to get compliments).

So I wake up on time, get ready, and arrive at the subway with plenty of time to spare . . . and then I realize that I forgot my wallet (with my money and metrocard) in my apartment. Oh, crap, I have no way of getting to the office. Doing the quick math in my head, I’m about a 15 minute round-trip walk to my apartment, plus the subway ride . . . oh no I can’t make it back. I have to figure out a way to get to work another way. Onto Plan B.

Plan B: I scrounge through my pockets and look for loose change, maybe I have $2 on me? I reach in and the first thing I pull out is a dollar bill. Jackpot, this will be easy. So I count up all of my loose change and it comes to . . . $1.80 . . . oh, so close, yet so far. I’m now picturing the dollar I gave out of my pocket to a guy playing guitar on the subway on Saturday night. Lesson: never help people.

Plan C: Ask the woman at the booth to buzz me through the handicap entrance. Our conversation went something like this:

Me (as pathetic as I can sound): Umm, I’m running late to work . . . and I forgot my metrocard . . . and I have a $1.80 . . . is there anyway you can open the gate for me just this one time?

Her (mostly indecipherable through that weird microphone thing): Sorry, you need a police officer to get through.

Me: What? Why do I need a police officer? What does that have to do with anything? Isn’t there just a button you push?

Her: Yes, I have a button, but we can’t open the gate without an officer. It’s our policy.

Me (franticly looking around for a police officer and finding no one): Please???

Plan D: Stand in front of the entrance to the station and ask people for a quarter. Time is ticking away at this point and I am getting pretty desperate. First, I take off my fingerless gloves, because I’m trying to downplay the “homelessness” of my look. Even with time ticking down, I can’t bring myself to ask a large crowd of people for a quarter (which, is really how you panhandle). I don’t know why. I am hit with a sudden influx of self-pride and not wanting to take money from someone worse-off than me (which is completely ridiculous considering it’s only a freakin quarter). But anyway, I totally freeze. I sheepishly ask exactly two people for change, and they just keep walking. Ok, moving on.

Plan E: I notice a breakfast cart on the corner. Bingo, this guy must have tons of change from the constant transactions, plus he’s always in the same location so I can pay him back tomorrow. I open with my pathetic, “Umm, this might sound strange, but can I borrow a quarter and pay you back tomorrow ?” Words cannot describe how much I feel like a loser right now. Immediately, he replies, “Sure, sure, don’t worry about it”, and gives me $.50 (I tried to explain that I only needed a quarter, but he wouldn’t take it back, and time is really against me at this point, so I just take it. Cha-ching.)

I run down to the subway, buy a metrocard, run and just make a departing train, run from the subway to my building, take the elevator up, and step inside the office just as the clock strikes 9:15am. I made it!

Then I find out the meeting was cancelled. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?

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Almost decapitated on the subway

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

I was taking the subway to work on Friday,  and i had a few bags with me for the weekend (it’s always an enjoyable experience lugging bags on the subway like an urban mule) . The F train (my daily train) pulled in as I stepped onto the platform, and I rushed to squeeze onto the crowded train before the doors closed. At this point, I would like to thank the six people who just stepped one foot inside of the doors and stopped,  instead of walking into the open spaces by the seats (forcing me to squeeze in and do my best ‘pancake” impression to avoid the closing door). Thanks and well done. Just continue to read your AMNewYork while I struggle with my bags in my one-foot- square space.

So as the train pulls away, I try to rearrange my belongings so that I can avoid leaning on the guy next to me. A woman taps me on the shoulder, points, and says, “Look, your scarf”. I immediately assume she is complimenting me on my lovely, blue scarf, but instead, she was pointing out that my lovely blue scarf was caught in the subway door (i still think she liked the scarf). So I laugh and try to pull the scarf out to no avail, since the doors on the subway close as tight as a bear trap. “I’ll just get it out at the next stop”, I tell the helpful lady, and I go back to what I was doing.

All of a sudden, panic strikes me when I realize that one end of the scarf is tied in a knot around my neck, and the other end of the scarf is dangling outside of the moving subway car. If the scarf outside of the subway gets caught on something, it could rip my head off. Literally. This is bad.

So I drop all of the bags I’m holding and untie my scarf as fast as I can. Thanks to my cat-like reflexes, I was able to remove the scarf  before my head popped off and rolled across the subway car (how terrifying would that have been for the people in my car? Serves them right for not moving away from the doors). At the next stop, I took the scarf out of the door, and continued on with my day.

I don’t like to use the word “Hero” often, but I think it applies in this situation.

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