I Get Mad, Bitches! (A Rant)

If these were my panties, they'd be in a twist.

I don't know if you know this, but life is fucking hard. And sometimes living in this city is hard too.

There are aspects of this city that I love with a passion that rivals my all-encompassing adoration of Ryan Gosling. Like the fact that if you have nothing to do and no money, you can go to a museum for free on a Friday night and if you flirt with the bartender they will give you a free drink to sip while you amuse yourself with some abstract expressionism for a while. (Although you think you acquired said drink because of your cleavage or insane flirting skills, it will most likely be because it is an open bar and therefore the bartender is required to give you a drink. Either way, score!) No longer do you have to sit at home with your cat watching You've Got Mail in unflattering sweatpants, placing your nightly call for Chinese take-out because you are single and therefore required to only ever eat Chinese food and always the same order which your local restaurant has memorized, much to your chagrin. New York City is a goldmine for single people, really it is. But you know what else it is? It is a fucking pain in the ass. And this doesn't just go for single people.

There are times when it is hard to leave your apartment without acquiring a thick coating of wrath that will inevitably grow thicker as the day drones on. A million little annoyances will accumulate until you have two choices: you drink a lot or you become a hater. If life is extra hard, you do both.

Take this morning, when I left my apartment and the truck parked right outside sprayed some brown sludge on me and I was all 'fuck you, truck!' and then I got on the subway and witnessed not one but 3 separate incidences of people acting like asshats towards one another. I mean, yeah, it's Monday, the worst of days, and inexplicably humid out even though it is technically supposed to be "warm cider season" but does that really give people an excuse to shove one another or start yelling at someone simply because they are offended by the song they hear them playing on their ipod or become a gargantuan bitch because someone's bag on a SEVERELY CROWDED TRAIN just happens to be grazing their left thigh even though, hello you dumb cow, there is an entire FOOT of empty space in front of you into which you could move to avoid said bag?!?

Deep breaths.

Even after I got off the subway, thinking I could shrug off my commute with a strong cup of coffee, I had to wait while a disgruntled middle-aged hag lambasted the poor coffee cart guy, insisting that he dented her doughnut and must now provide her with a new doughnut and ALSO a free second doughnut because her doughnuts are precious god damn it and shouldn't be man-handled and while she was at it, her coffee was chocolate and not toffee-colored as she had specified so she needed a new coffee too with the correct amount of cream. Nevermind the 16 people lined up behind her who were already late to work, myself included.

Suffice it to say, this has not been an I <3 NY kind of day.

there are lots of nice people to meet by laura george

You know, I happen to be from a nice small town where people are genuinely kind to one another. Sure, they may gather in coffee shops to slander one another or spread vicious lies every now and then but there is a pretty strict code of feigned pleasantry and a general rule to be nice to people, at least to their faces. I appreciate this. It makes life rather nice. I'm sure it doesn't take any additional energy, certainly not as much as it took that woman to shove me out of the way this morning instead of simply saying 'excuse me'.  Why is it so hard to be nice to strangers on a train? Or on the street? Or in a store? Or at the coffee cart?

I'll tell you where all this leads: This leads to chaos. Because you know how I felt when I got off the train this morning? I felt like I wanted to kick someone. Hard. The kind of kick where they fall on the ground and then I pretend like 'oops! you totally just tripped on my small little foot and I can't believe you fell down and I'm just POSITIVE you've done nothing to deserve that at all! carry on, carry on.'. But I didn't kick anyone. Instead, I let it fester until I could recharge myself with two glasses of prosecco and some popcorn cooked in duck fat (awesome! not gross at all!). So I guess, in the end, I salvaged the day. But if anyone crosses me on the train tomorrow,  there will be blood.


Images: La Perla, Laura George