The Mischief-Making of Audrey. And what it has done to me.

I've mentioned one of my roommates, Audrey, on this blog already, concerning her friendship hijinks, but I think it's high time I went into greater detail regarding her capacity for mercilessly teasing me and, simultaneously, driving me--quite literally--crazy.

Audrey and I met our second semester of college, both of us having transferred from other places to the Mississippi university we eventually called home, but we didn't become good friends until the end of our sophomore year, when we were both cast in a fellow dance major's spring piece. For at least the first year or so of our friendship, I dealt easily with Audrey's propensity for mischief: she could reverse-shoulder-tap with the best of them (she refers to herself as The Queen of Reverse-Shoulder-Tapping without even a hint of sarcasm), and she often enjoyed pushing me off the sidewalk during our walks to the cafeteria or back to the dormitory. It wasn't until later on that she began showing her true colors--that is, her desire to make me certifiably insane.

Audge lives to scare the daylights out of me. (One of these days, I will actually drop dead of cardiac arrest, and then--THEN--she'll be sorry. Until then, unfortunately, I will just continue to suffer mild heart attacks and wait out a few painful seconds of remembering how to breathe.) After reading my blog post concerning her love for Rachel-scare-attacks, she promptly decided to one-up her personal best. As she was exiting the shower that night, clad only in a towel and a Turbie Twist (the fact that the Feeney household at one time contained twenty-seven Turbie Twists should give you some small clue into her personality), she heard me singing blissfully in the hallway to our apartment, retrieving my keys to open the door. Just before I entered the apartment, she jumped into the storage closet--naked, let's remember, save for only a towel and Turbie Twist--that opens up directly across from my and also another roommate, Kayla's, rooms. Kayla was exiting her room just as I was approaching mine, quite oblivious to the fact that Audrey was waiting for me in the closet. Kayla, upon entering the hallway, made an odd face as I told her hello; I later learned that this was because she was facing the naked Audrey, who was making frantic "Shhh!" motions with her hands. As I paused to tell Kayla hello before entering my room, Audrey jumped out at me, screaming and waving her arms spastically. (Her towel stayed on, thank goodness.)

Naturally, I almost died of fright. I don't think I regained a normal breathing pattern until ten or so seconds after Audrey's attack. Audrey, of course, scampered off to her room, fearing my wrath. Truthfully, I wasn't sure whether to kill her or applaud her intense commitment to giving me a good scare. I mean, really? Naked in the closet? That took dedication.

There's also the time she stole my keys from me in the cafeteria and quickly rode the down escalator before I could snatch them back. Gleefully waiting for me at the bottom of the down escalator, she made sure to pause her antics until I had begun my trek down the escalator; once I was safely in the midst of running after her to the bottom, she quickly placed my keys on a step of the UP escalator. Tiring immediately of this game, I quickly ran down the remaining down escalator steps until I could begin climbing the stairs to the up escalator. As I approached my keys--and, consequently, the top of the escalator--I learned that she'd employed another of our friends, Little Mary, to grab my keys and place them on the down escalator.

This continued for several rounds. I strongly considered killing Audrey at this point, but I tried to remember her redeeming qualities and give her a second chance. This was, obviously, a huge mistake.

Audrey also enjoyed offering to give me a ride from my sorority dorm to various places of interest on campus, since most of our classes and errands coordinated nicely. Unfortunately, most of her enjoyment in this endeavor stemmed from the fact that just as I was approaching her car--nearly grasping the door handle--she would abruptly floor the gas and take off around the spacious parking lot, cackling like an imbecile. Each time she looped around near me again, she'd promise that THIS would be the time she'd actually stop the car and let me inside. Usually, I had to wait it out through three or four "promises" until she let me inside.

When riding inside my car, Audrey was no better behaved. One would think that she'd have the decency to appreciate the fact that I was generously giving her a ride (and NOT forcing her to jump into a moving vehicle), but no--never, in fact. She--and whoever else was riding with us that she could quickly persuade to join in--would begin playing what she referred to as, simply, The Game: that is, alternating between turning on my emergency flashers and blowing my horn at inappropriate moments. I quickly learned to drive with one hand covering my emergency flashers, elbow ominously extended in the direction of anyone who tried to sneak in a horn toot. This was, as you can imagine, very difficult. My fellow drivers probably thought I was crazy, at best, what with sporadic emergency flasher use and long toots of my horn for absolutely no good reason.

And though we've now graduated from college and therefore truly entered adulthood, Audrey hasn't slacked off in the slightest; in fact, she's only upped her game. Apart from scaring me whilst naked in closets, continuing to reverse-shoulder-tap me, and roughly push me into the street, she also enjoys calling me stupid in various ways. One day, while walking through IKEA, Audrey mentioned that she might want to buy a wok. Now, as I've detailed in earlier posts, I know little to nothing about cooking. I'd never heard of a wok before. I made the mistake of alerting Audrey to this fact, innocently asking, "What's a wok?"

Instead of merely answering my question and then going about her daily business, Audrey began poorly imitating my voice--putting it up at least an octave or two--and asking questions that I clearly knew the answers to as if she were me. "What's a wok, Audrey?" she'd ask, smiling like an idiot and tilting her head to the side. "What's stir fry?" "What's Chinese food, Audrey?" "What's a NOODLE?"

Sigh. This is what I put up with on daily basis, I tell you.

Of course, I am not without retaliation. I suppose I should mention that I currently have a framed, poster-size picture of Audrey, circa eleven years old, hanging behind my door in my bedroom. It is truly the most awkward picture ever taken of a child clearly in the most awkward phase of her young life, and it is hanging for all to see. (I suppose I should also mention that I stole this picture from Audrey's house, blew it up at a Kinko's to poster size, and then hung it in the dressing room for all to see and mock during tech week for a dance concert one semester. What can I say? When I'm good, I'm good.)

I almost regret creating this post, as I'm fairly certain it will only further incite Audrey to torment me. But I also need the world to know the truth. Which is that Audrey is, without a doubt, a demon from the innermost bowels of hell.

Me and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Today has not been so great. I wish I could say this is because the forces of the universe have decided to conspire against me yada yada yada, but it's actually due entirely to my own stupidity. Gah.

When I got to work at the restaurant today, I immediately headed to the kitchen area, as I always do. I tend to the coffee, ketchup, iced tea, and roll-ups first; once I finish all of that jazz, I head back out to the front and help Fio the bartender set up the outdoor cafe tables (those damn things again, yes) and the dining room. This is my routine. It works rather well. Unfortunately, we sometimes get deliveries of liquor or beer or wine at the restaurant in the mornings, before Fio gets there. (I go in at 10 am, and he gets an extra half hour of whatnot before he has to show up. Lame.) I say "unfortunately" because Fio is a very particular person and bartender with very particular ways of handling deliveries, and I usually fail when attempting to deal with a delivery in the same method. This morning was a perfect example of such a situation.

As I was creating the ramekins of ketchup, I heard someone hollering "Hello?" up front in the dining room. Abandoning my ketchup-making, I headed to the dining room to see a delivery man looking for someone to sign his invoice. He'd already stacked up boxes and boxes of what appeared to be port and some other wines in the dining room, right next to the bar. (This was no-no numero uno: Fio hates to have all of the wine delivered upstairs. He likes to meet the delivery men outside, in front of the restaurant, and request that they only bring in a box or two or whatever he needs immediately behind the bar; he has them bring the rest of the delivery downstairs, where the alcohol is stored. This way, he has less to carry up and down the basement stairs. This makes perfect sense, but if I don't get to the delivery man before he enters the restaurant, Fio's First Rule is already broken.) (So yeah. I'd already messed up.)

This delivery man also seemed to be in somewhat of a hurry. He thrust the invoice that I needed to sign in my face, already rattling off the number of boxes that he'd placed in the center of the kitchen and what kinds of alcohol each box was. Completely flustered, I took the invoice from him and attempted to quickly match up what had been ordered with what was being delivered. (This is Fio's Second Rule: always make sure that what was ordered is what's being delivered. Don't let them deliver too little or too much. Once you sign that invoice, you're agreeing that the delivery was, indeed, correct. And if you sign off on the delivery and it's NOT correct, Fio will get very angry with you. This has happened to me before.)

I didn't have a pen on me to sign, so I asked Delivery Dude if he had one. Nope. He didn't. He made a half-move, as if to go to his truck to get one, but it was one of those half-moves where you can tell it's purely out of politeness and that the person has absolutely no real intention of performing the requested task. Seeing this, I began turning around in place, as if a Pen God would soon descend from the ceiling and drop a writing utensil in my open palm. (This, sadly, did not happen. Delivery Dude started combing the bar and found one of Fio's pens for me to use.) (Side note number four hundred twenty-seven: do not steal Fio's pens. This also angers him greatly.)

I quickly scribbled my name on the invoice, sensing Delivery Dude's impatience. ("We gotta lot of deliveries to make this morning. We in a rush.") (Sure, no pressure. Thanks, Delivery Dude. I've only got The Wrath of Fio on the line here, man.) He swiftly rushed out, and I was left with some twenty-odd cases of wine. I'd already noticed that several of them were cases of port, which seemed dimly unusual, but I chalked up this oddity to the fact that just last week we'd run out of our last bottle of port. (Here's where bells should've been clanging crazily in my pea-brain: we hadn't ordered any port in a reeeeeeally long time. Like, maybe since last winter, Fio said. And yet I was okay with us apparently ordering ten CASES of port. I remember thinking that the port remnants Fio had allowed me to sample last week were quite tasty, and that it must be quite a popular winter drink, indeed, since we needed to order so much of it.) (Insert international soundbite for stupidity--something along the lines of "uhh-duuuh," in a dumb-sounding male voice.)

Cut to twenty minutes later, when Fio arrives. As I'm exiting the kitchen, heading to the dining room, I see him standing amongst the cases, with his jacket still on and the invoice in hand. I immediately prepare to apologize for not getting to the delivery man fast enough, so that the wine could be stored downstairs, but all I could get out was something along the lines of "Yeah, I kn--" before Fio cut me off.

"Who signed for this?" he demands.

I am scared to answer. His face is comprised of disgust, anger, and complete unbelievability. I stammer.

"I--I did."

Wordlessly, he hands me the invoice, with his finger pointing to the company name and address at the top of the page. Rather than reading our restaurant's name, it has the name of the liquor store down the block. Yep. I'm a moron. I allowed a liquor store's delivery to be dropped off here. I completely forgot to check the invoice's address. I am a very dumb person. (You are really dumb. Fo' real.) I cringe visibly and brave a look at Fio's face.

Nope. Not a good idea. In this brief moment of time, it is unquestionably clear to me that Fio actually wants to kill me. Possibly with one of these many cases of port. For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. Then, slowly and carefully:

"So you actually thought we ordered ten cases of port?"

I nod, timid and still fearful for my life.

Huge, exasperated sigh. Fio's brow is suddenly lined with sweat. (Which probably formed as a result of his trying to quash his currently homicidal rage.) I begin taking small backwards steps toward the kitchen, as if I were leaving the company of royalty. I am terrified that if I turn around, Fio will throw a small knife into my back. (Or perhaps a large one, to ensure no chance of survival.)

For the rest of my setup time, I skulk around in the kitchen area, desperately trying to avoid Fio until the situation has been resolved. I later learn that he called the delivery company and had them come back to remove the offensive cases of port and wine, to re-deliver them to the wine store. Naturally, he will never let me live this down. Never. By the time my shift is over, he's already told the regulars who come to the bar of my complete idiocy and threatened to tell my manager, as well as the owner of the restaurant. I am, of course, mortified. I feel like a waitress rookie all over again. (Definitely not a feeling I like to relive. You know.)

I have no happy anecdote to end this blog post. I still feel dumb. And stupid. And incompetent. Bah. My tummy hurts.

A would-be love letter to the city of New York.

You know, if you think about it, I've been living in the city for over a year now. I mean, I know this. I have known this. And this has been, without question, the longest year of my life. So I've known that I've lived here for a very, very long time, even though it's only been a year in real-life time. (Just go with me here.) What I mean to say is that it's still very surreal, sometimes. You know? I'll be walking down the street, jamming to some excellent musical theatre selections on the ipod, feeling like Edna St. Vincent Millay ("O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!" Or something like that.), wondering where the nearest frozen yogurt shop is, and it'll just hit me: I live in the city of New York.

But I don't mean that I'm in awe of the city itself. When I think that thought in my head, that is. I mean, I am in awe of the city itself. Constantly. (In fact, it would be very accurate to say that I am so in awe of it that I am afraid of it. Most of the time.) It's more that I'm in disbelief about the events that transpired to get me here. I still have trouble believing that I managed to pack up and move my 'fraidy-cat-self away from all family and friends (save Allie) and learn to live The New York Way. Which would be the way of public transportation. And the way of eating ninety percent of my meals on the run. And the way of the starving-artist-waitress thing. And the way of winter hats. And the way of becoming desensitized to homeless people. And the way of ubiquitous stairs. And the way of walking quickly. And the way of creepy apartment hallways. And the way of constantly wondering how anyone can afford to live here.

I mean, for real. Allie and I were just two naive Southern girls who allotted a week of our pre-New-York summer to find an apartment. We stayed in this semi-sketch hostel and shared a bathroom with randos. And we learned so, so much. In just that week. We were so studious; every night, we'd take our laptops down to the hostel lobby and craigslist our way through hundreds of apartment listings, making phone calls and setting up viewing times and writing things down in our prim little notebooks. We were so diligent. (The two of us are nothing if not diligent. And also fastidious.) And I was so very terrified. On our first day of legit apartment hunting, I had a terribly upset stomach. (When I get nervous, I become super nauseated.) As we exited the subway and came back above ground, I had to rest for a minute under a tree and dry heave into some bushes. (The next day was even worse, beeteedub. I actually threw up. In a subway station. In a trash can. Oh, Columbus Street Station. I shall always associate you with my vomit. It was revolting. Subway trash cans are pretty disgusting in and of themselves, lemme tell ya. And there I was, hunched over one, retching uncontrollably. Passersby were equally revolted. They probably thought I was some hungover college kid losing my post-party greasy breakfast. Gah.) Poor Allie. (I love you, Allie. And not just because you can deal with me vomiting. Promise.)

I remember discovering the magic of hopstop.com. I remember climbing into the broker's car and wondering if she would be taking us to a deserted lot and murdering us, rather than showing us a different apartment. I remember the terror of those first two weeks, when I would sit on my bed, surrounded by pink pillows and blankets, desperately trying to find a job on craigslist. I remember my first day at the restaurant--I didn't know how to set up the tables, and when I tried to decorate the chalkboard that we propped outside the front door, the bartender told me that I didn't really have that great of handwriting. I remember journaling almost every day about how scared and sad and lonely and homesick I felt. I remember crying. I remember crying to my parents, specifically. All the time. About everything. I remember going to my first audition, for The Lion King on Broadway. (Update: I didn't get the gig.) (Hahaa. I crack myself up.) (I mean, I really didn't get it, though. It was funny because there's no way I would've gotten that dance job. And also because I wouldn't be a waitress now if I'd gotten any job dancing on Broadway.) (Oh, my. This is getting depressing.) I remember getting my library card. I remember the first time I wore tights under my jeans. I remember buying my first pair of boots.

It's just weird. I am not a courageous person. I say this with no false modesty--I am timid, deferential, and mediocre in most things. Moving here is easily the most difficult and also the bravest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I still don't know if I made the right choice, moving here. Which is a pretty scary thing to come to terms with. I'm sincerely hoping that the next thirteen and a half months convince me that I've made the right choice. That this is where I'm supposed to be. (Because, you know, if not--I just wasted a year and a half's rent futzing around the good ole NYC.) I think things are looking up, though. I love my new apartment; I love having so many roommates; I love dancing for Mari; I love the twinkle lights in my room; I love the library system. I am scared of the winter and the coldness and unhappiness it will bring, but I feel more prepared to face it, this time around. I want to like you, New York City. Really, I want to love you. I do.

Things I've Learned From My Roommates. (A work-in-progress, naturally.)

I am very lucky to have three of my closest friends as my roommates--Allie, Audrey, and Kayla. Audrey and Kayla just moved up to the city a few weeks ago, but Allie and I have been weathering this city together for over a year. We moved up here together, as it were. (A story for another day. But oh, what a story.) And I very much love living with these three girls. Really, I do. (Despite the fact that Audrey sometimes seems to be acting on orders from a higher power that she make my life as miserable as possible in a variety of ways, least of which are burying me beneath piles of clothing and shoes and deliberately creeping up behind me in potentially spooky situations and then screaming loudly, giving me small but very real episodes of cardiac arrest.) (And also despite the fact that Audge hacked my facebook account this morning and posted a status proclaiming that I bite my toenails.) (And also despite the fact that Audrey routinely pushes me off the sidewalk when we walk ANYWHERE together, in a very forceful and unfriendly manner.) (But I digress.) I love my roommates. But they make me feel dumb. A lot of the time.

Not purposely, of course. I feel dumb in comparison to them. They seem to have all of this knowledge about things I know absolutely nothing about. And this knowledge, according to them, is common. Everyone knows these things, they tell me. But I don't. So the feeling of dumbness sets in. I have compiled a partial list of the valuable information that they have thus far passed along to me. It has greatly increased my quality of life.

1. If you want to be able to successfully remove your baked good from the pan in which it was baked, you must use Pam.

On Allie's first birthday here in New York--last September--I decided to wake up early and bake her a cake the morning of her day of birth. This in itself was a monumental decision, mostly because my baking and/or cooking skills are nil. Zilch. Nada. I spent a lot of time on the phone with my mom and older sister, getting their advice on cake mixes and supplies and flavors. I eventually decided on a yellow cake mix and a lemon icing, simply because Allie's favorite color is yellow. (Turns out that the combo of yellow cake and lemon icing is...odd. Not necessarily bad. Just odd.) I ended up burning the cake slightly, but this error paled in comparison to the huge chunk of cake that was left in the pan when I tried to remove it. I used one of those special silicone pans--the "no stick" ones, you know?--that was in the shape of a rose. Too bad the rose was missing a good chunk. My panicked solution to this problem was quick and easy. And also messy and inefficient. And also somewhat revolting. I just globbed on a shitload of extra icing where the missing chunk was--the upper left portion of the cake. This both looked and tasted ridiculous. The icing was sliding all over the place and sort of melting and generally looking completely unappetizing.

Allie, of course, was a good sport about the whole thing, and reminded me that it's the thought that counts. She gamely ate the cake, as well. And she also told me that Pam, as it turns out, is not an optional part of baking. It's rather necessary, actually.

2. If you use heat warmers to keep yourself toasty in the winter during your morning commute, do not apply them directly to your skin. Or to your tights.

When we lived in Ridgewood, I'd have to travel an hour to and from work each morning. In the heart of winter (even though winter HAS NO HEART), I was completely miserable. All I did was complain about the cold. Eventually, Allie's best friend, Gloria, must've grown tired of hearing about my whining from Allie, because she mailed me some of those heat warmers that you can put in your pockets to keep your hands warm. You know what I'm talking about? They have adhesive backs, sometimes, and you can just stick 'em to your clothing. I figured heat warmers were the greatest invention ever. But I wasn't going to waste a heat warmer or two on just my mittened hands; I wanted those puppies on my stomach, warming my core.

Allie and Gloria warned me that the heat warmers would get pretty hot. Naturally, I paid no attention to anything they said. On a particularly cold morning, as I was running late to catch the subway to work (but not faceplant-late, of course), I yanked up my dress just before I left the apartment and stuck two heat warmers on top of my stockings, right over my tummy. I was practically salivating at the thought of riding the subway blissfully warm.

In the panic and hustle of catching the train, I didn't even notice that the heat warmers were doing admirably well. In fact, it wasn't until I'd grabbed a seat on the train that I noticed just how well they were performing. Those things were HOT. My abdomen felt as if it were on fire. Painful, hot fire. (Is there any other kind? Probably not. But I needed those adjectives. Don't judge me.) I tried a number of new positions in my seat, twisting and turning and squirming and generally making a spectacle of myself. When this did nothing to alleviate the crazy-hot heat emanating from my stomach, I tried slouching ridiculously in my seat so that my tummy wasn't pressing against the stockings (and therefore the heat warmers) with as much direct force. (If you just read that and thought it made no sense, you are indeed correct. This did not work. Slouching had absolutely no effect on the heat warmers.)

I was desperate, really. Still slouching, I yanked my stockings by the waistband and pulled them tautly away from my skin. People were beginning to stare at me. There I was, sweating, slouching, and holding my dress and stockings six inches away from my stomach. I looked crazed, to say the least. And this STILL didn't work. Those suckers were still insanely hot. I ended up having to reach up my dress (Yes, this is a true story.) and rip the heat warmers off my stockings. You could hear the adhesive backing as it was pulled away from the cloth. Basically, it looked as if I'd just reached up my underwear and removed two pantiliners, one after the other. I couldn't even raise my eyes off the floor for the remainder of the subway ride. I was so very embarrassed.

And hot. I got home that night to discover two perfect oval burn marks on my stomach. Battle scars, if you will. Ah, winter.

3. If you don't apply primer to a wall that has been painted far too many times, it will peel. When you try to paint a new coat.

I got quite a few panicked text messages from Audrey one morning when I was at work: she'd decided to paint the living room wall with the paint I'd bought the day before, but it wasn't going so well. The paint kept bubbling up and then beginning to peel. In foot-long sections. I had no idea we'd needed primer. Audrey wanted to kill me, naturally. Especially after I made the infinitely stupid suggestion to her that she should attempt to peel off the paint that had bubbled up. We ended up with giant, gaping holes of white on our cranberry-colored wall.

Audge ended up having to prime the whole wall and sand down the edges of the peeled paint and a laundry list of other fix-it steps that I still am not fully cognizant of. The wall looks good now, though. Thanks, Audge.

This post has gone on long enough, so I won't tell you how I learned that pay stubs do, actually, serve a purpose and should be saved (and not thrown away, as I did with mine), or how I learned that cutting one's own bangs won't come out too good if one uses her hand to plaster the bangs against her forehead before snipping them (this will actually result in said bangs being exceedingly too short once one removes her hand from the pressed-down bangs). Nor will I detail how turning up the heat on the stove to cook one's pancakes, in theory, faster, may actually result in the smoke alarm going off. (And this is undesirable, especially when one has an urge for pancakes at one in the morning, when the rest of the apartment building is sleeping.) I will leave all of that to your imaginations.

People. (People who need people.) (Are the luckiest people. In the world.) (Sorry. Couldn't help it.)

I think I need to say a little something about the people of New York. Having lived here for a little over a year now, I feel confident in saying that my preconceptions of New Yorkers were actually pretty far off. I imagined the population of this city as little more than bitter, rude, and downright mean--particularly when they were forced to interact with other people who were new to the city. Basically, I capitalized on every New Yorker stereotype I'd ever heard of. But I was pretty wrong. People here are often abrupt, yes, and they're usually pretty direct--which can sometimes come across as rude--but very few are bitter and mean. Most of the time, in fact, New Yorkers are instead downright friendly.

This is not to say, however, that there are not exceptions to the rule.  Some New Yorkers find creative ways to make you feel uncomfortable, ignorant, and insignificant. Having worked as a waitress on the Upper East Side for the past year, I've been unlucky enough to experience several different varieties of New Yorkers. Let's talk about three specific types here. Shall we?

1. The Privileged, Uppah-Clahss.

These are the people I hate dealing with the most in the restaurant industry. I may be a waitress--therefore poor, without good health insurance, and dressed embarrassingly monochromatically--but I am not, in the words of Eliza Doolittle, dirt under your feet. (Someone else other than the fictional character of Eliza Doolittle has probably said this, too. But I would like you to imagine Eliza Doolittle's version, if you please.)

At our restaurant, we have an outdoor cafe that we set up during the spring, summer, and early fall. I'm required to spray down every outdoor table (with what appears to be Windex, since we keep ALL cleaning substances in Windex bottles, but is actually dishwashing soap. This is odd, no? Patrons of our restaurant must be disturbed by our ubiquitous use of Windex. Alas, this is a story for another time) and then wipe it clean. Now, a spray bottle has a certain radius of stream. This is not breaking news, either to me or those walking along the street directly in front of the restaurant. I do, however, try to wait until people have passed me before I spray down a table, on the off chance that some of the faux-Windex stream will graze them. One morning, however, I unknowingly sprayed a young woman who was talking on her cell phone and walking very quickly past the restaurant. Without breaking her stride or getting off her cell phone, she managed to turn her torso halfway around and berate me. In a Hispanic accent. Which I will try to duplicate here. She said, "Don't you spah-ray thaht fuh-king SHIT awn me!"

Now. Come, come. Really? Really? First of all, the faux Windex barely TOUCHED her. She was also moving at lightning speed, so I highly doubt that any of it had time to truly soak into her clothing. Second of all, it's not like this was some horrendous substance. It was cleaning solution, for goodness' sake. It could only improve her clothing, really. Third of all, she was implying that I sprayed her ON PURPOSE. I did not! I would never purposely spray someone down with Windex. Or any other substance. Unless we're talking about my sisters. Because I'd probably spray them down. In fact, I probably have sprayed them down, at some point in our lives. But anyone else--never. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to fire back a withering retort at this silly woman, but I did not, sadly. I only stared after her, open-mouthed, completely at a loss for words.

2. Lookin' to Make the Trouble for You.

These are the people of the working class who feel that living in the city of New York gives them the right to do whatever the hell they want, simply because they deserve the best of everything, money and social status be damned. They are generally unhappy and dissatisfied, finding pleasure only in making trouble for someone else. They are also usually cheap.

On another morning last fall, whilst wiping down those lovely outdoor cafe tables (so much awfulness in my life has happened amongst those tables), my bar rag that I'd been using became so dirty from the grime atop the tables that I had to journey back inside the restaurant and find a new cleaning rag. Having discovered that there were no more clean rags, I quickly grabbed a clean napkin from the stack of linens that would be later used to roll the silverware and proceeded to finish spraying and wiping down the outdoor tables. Let me reiterate that this was a CLEAN napkin. Let me also say that this was totally normal--other servers would use clean napkins to wipe down tables when rags were unavailable, and even the busboys and bartenders would do the same, on occasion. Let me say, too, that our napkins actually do a better job of cleaning table surfaces than our bar rags; the rags leave white morsels of fluff behind, whereas the napkins do not. So.

As I'm wiping down a table, a Jamaican woman pushing a baby stroller (with a Caucasian child inside) walks by and notices me. Without even bothering to ask what I'm doing (or even tell me good morning, for that matter--but who am I kidding? I crack myself up), she begins to berate me. "Ahrr you seeriously using ah NAHP-kin to wipe down tha taybles? Ah'm gonna re-PORT you. You using ah NAHP-kin tha' you gonna be givin' to tha' people to eat with. Ah'm gonna re-PORT you."

Now, this woman is obviously a nanny for some rich UES housewife. And maybe she's tired of having to wake up early and take care of some rando woman's kids every morning instead of her own. And maybe she's tired of placating this probably very spoiled child and giving in to her employer's every ridiculous whim. And maybe she needs to redirect her anger and frustration elsewhere, so that she keeps her job. But I do NOT deserve to be berated by her, loudly and embarrassingly. And jesus christ. I would NEVER give any patron of the restaurant the same napkin to wipe his or her mouth with that I'd used earlier that day to clean tables with. This is not just common decency. This is common sense, lady. I'm personally offended that she would even consider that I would do something like that. Gah.

3. The Overly Talkative. Or, The Truly Crazy.

This is kind of a catch-all category, I suppose. But it has been my experience that those who have the capacity for and seem to enjoy talking excessively are, indeed, crazy. For example. My former landlord, Mr. Josif. This was a man who: A.) willingly slept in the basement, amidst the stink of his cigarette smoke and the clutter of forty years' worth of crap; B.) was sixty-nine years old but looked much nearer to two hundred; C.) my roommate and I regularly crept past in order to avoid conversing with, since we knew that even the most mundane of conversations could last for hours. Hours. No topic was left uncovered by this man--AIDS, alcohol, Jews, Catholics, Muslims, the Spanish bar around the corner. His garrulousness was matched only by his far-reaching prejudice. This man seemed to hate all religions, all ethnicities, and all political views without exception. Really, if you think about it, he wasn't prejudiced at all--he just chose to hate everyone. Everyone.

The Saw Lady from the subway station also falls into this category (she uses an actual saw to play recognizable songs for money, with both a baseball cap bearing the words "THE SAW LADY" and a constant beatific smile), as does the older man from the restaurant where I work who insists on telling me every time he comes in that I should work for the CIA, since I have a "nondescript" face. (What does that even mean? Does he mean that as a compliment? Does one desire a nondescript face? Why would he tell me this, that I blend into a crowd, having absolutely no discerning features? This bothers me. Still). I would also include the exceedingly grumpy woman who routinely comes into the restaurant, CLEANS her plate, and then complains vociferously about how terrible the food was.

So, yes. Welcome to New York. (Maybe the rats should have their own category?)