Untitled

Submitted by reeses on Sun, 2002-10-13 05:28.

I think I'm going to change the name of this log to reesesWhining or reesesWhinging depending on your locale settings. I'm at it again...

What is it with New Yorkers and rain? I'm starting to realise that, in fact, people in Seattle do deal well with the rain. They only slow down 25%, not the 50-75% that people here do. And I understand now the moisture machismo of not using an umbrella in mild misty rain. (Isn't 'Misty Rain' the name of a porn "actress"? What's the proper descriptive term for them, anyway? "Porn Star" is most common, I think, but it's just overreporting of a different type. "Porn Slut" can't be said in most company, so I'm left with "Porn quote actress unquote.") People in New York are vicious with their umbrellae. I've had my eyes poked out three times, and had to go scrambling around on the wet sidewalks to find them before some undersized dog snatched them up. I'd hate for a midget dog to choke on my eyeball -- though it would be interesting and not a little vertiginous to watch the trip on the way down.

The other thing that riled me a little (but not enough to do anything about it at first) was this dingus in the taxi line behind me at Penn Station. We'd move up a few feet, he'd move up, and every time, he crowded behind me so he pushed my umbrella forward. Come on, buddy, you should be tuned in enough to know that A) you're bumping someone and B) they probably don't want you to. Finally, he tilted his umbrella forward, dousing me with the runoff, that I had to turn around and say,"Jesus, can you control your umbrella?"

Not here three months and already I'm giving people the impression that New Yorkers are rude. It's like the notorious french rudeness -- there's a strict social contract required for coexistence in a very densely populated city. You walk quickly, you don't block escalators, subway doors, etc. If you do, you're breaking the contract, and are therefore not really a member of the society. Be thankful that you're reprimanded rather than shot, which is the way I'd have it sometimes. But I'm from the wild west, and we don't cotton that.

And we own guns, which goes a long way towards making it easy to shoot the varmints.

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