The Cranky Old Gnome

So, by request, here is the additional post about the bickering couple on the subway.  To see what I’m referring to go here.

It was around one in the a.m. and I was in no mood to be listening to two people argue.  But I’d be chased out of the last two subway cars, and was just too tired to move again.  So I settled in and tried my best to ignore them.

This was no easy task.

The couple was the stereotypical Long Island/Staten Island New York couple.  They were both well dressed, but in a very trashy, over the top way.  As in, the clothes they were wearing were nice, but it wasn’t well put together.  They looked like they had just come from a night club because they looked tired and haggard, and a little sweaty.  And covered in body glitter.  Holy body glitter batman.

I came in mid way through the argument.  I tried not to listen but seeing as they were yelling, I didn’t really have a choice.  As best as I can put together here’s what was going down.  He was upset because he’d been unable to find this month’s credit card bill, and was pressuring her to tell him if she’d seen it.  She kept denying it but he kept pushing–pushing in that way where it sounded like he totally knew where the bill was, but was waiting to see if she’d fess up.

She didn’t.

Finally, he got fed up and whipped it out–which I thought was weird.  I mean, you brought your credit card bill with you on a night out on the town?  Were you planning on paying the bill during the dance breaks, or did you have this show-down with your lady prepared all along?

Up to this point she basically had not stopped talking.  Even when he was talking she was talking.  And it wasn’t always about the topic he was trying to address.  She just talked and talked and talked.  And she had this terribly shrill, piercing, nasally voice that made me wish I’d stayed back on the car with the old lady and her Gran Corona.  But as soon as he pulled that bill out she went silent.

I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t just pulled that bill out earlier and saved the rest of us from needing to get our hearing checked, but I decided to stay out of it.

She got this look on her face that is a little hard to describe.  At first, it seemed like she was busted, and knew she was busted and was ashamed, but then she got this look like she was really offended at him from busting her and spoiling her ruse, and then she looked angry like she was going to fight back, but then she had no idea what to say.  And all these looks happened pretty much simultaneously.

Before he could say anything like, “What do you have to say for yourself?” or “How do you explain this?” or “Did you really think you could hide this $40,000 charge from me forever?” (note, I don’t know if it was a $40,000 bill, but the way he was acting it sure seemed like it), she was on the defensive.  “I needed new boots for the party!  And then I had to have a dress to match the shoes.  And a purse.  And a necklace.  And matching earings.  You said you wanted me to look nice!  Really this is your fault!”

“My fault? Yeah I wanted you to look nice but I figured you’d wear one of the outfits you already own.  You’ve got three closets full of dresses and shoes and other crap!”

“Yeah but those are all old, I wanted something new.”

“Old? First of all some of those things you’ve never even worn–”

“Look, I shouldn’t have to ask your permission to spend our money on thi–”

“You mean my money.”

This is the point where if this were a’90s sitcom the live studio audience would have gone, “Oooooooo” and laughed awkwardly.

“What?” he said, “You don’t have a job, you don’t bring in any income, how is it ‘our money’?”

“I think a man should provide for his woman.  You should be giving me everything I want.”

This is the point I mentioned in my other post where she tried to get me involved.  She looked right at me and said, “Right? I bet you provide for your woman.”  I didn’t even respond–just went back to my newspaper.  The guy next to me wasn’t so smart.  He casually responded with, “Well, yeah a man should provide for his woman’s needs, but not necessarily her wants.”

Oh no he di’n’t.

I think, if she had been closer, and if her boyfriend/fiance/husband/whatever he wasn’t there to hold her back she would have walked over to that guy and slapped him across his poor, naive face.

She turned her rage and indignation on this poor fool, pretty much accusing him of being a misogynist and probably didn’t have any money to provide for anyone.  He said he was just trying to help.  She told him he was supposed to help her not her significant other.  Poor guy.  As soon as the train pulled in to 14th street he bailed.  I’d be willing to bet that wasn’t the stop he wanted but he got off.  He didn’t even move to another car–I guess he was a little worried she’d find him.

And so the argument continued.  They went on like this for twenty more minutes.  He would bring up a point and she would change the subject.  She would make a point and he would shoot it down.  At some point, I’m not really sure when (as I was trying to ignore them), the arguing stopped.  Against my better judgment I looked up to see why they weren’t yelling at each other anymore.  They were making out.  Like full on, groping, face sucking, heavy petting, back of a ’67 Chevy, high school passion making out.

‘Well,’ I thought to myself, ‘at least they stopped yelling.’

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz

I couldn’t really think of a clever title for this.  Sorry about that.

Anyway, allow me to tell you a story.

It’s been a long day.  I didn’t sleep well last night, and was up early this morning because for some ungodly reason my neighbor behind me decided to blast mariachi music through his ghetto fabulous outdoor speaker system.  I wasn’t feeling well most of the morning and was unsuccessful at my attempts to nap.  At 3 I had to head out to work, but it was pouring outside.  I then spent 15 unsuccessful minutes trying to find my rain coat.  Following a swim to the subway station, I arrived just in time to miss the train.  The good news I got to spend the next twenty minutes waiting in a station that had created it’s own strange weather system that seemed to be a mix of Siberian Tundra, tepid Everglades, and soggy bread.

When the train finally arrived, it was packed.  Not quite as packed as the Japanese subway system, but still pretty full.  Usually when a train is that packed I try and wait for the next one, but I was already running late, so I girded up my loins and squished on in.

Now I’ve been on packed trains before.  But this…this was a special kind of hell.  This wasn’t a train full of people–this was a hot, humid train full of wet, angry, frustrated New Yorkers.

I have to digress a little to provide context.  First, the winter here in New York this year has been particularly harsh.  We got DUMPED on.  Over 40″ of snow in a week.  But then, in March, the clouds parted, the sun came up, and the winter beast slowly backed back into its cage.  It was so nice out.  It was warm and happy and the birds were singing–I expected Snow White to appear at any minute.  It was so nice.  Up until a few days ago.  Seems the beast of winter wasn’t quite finished tormenting us.  And I tell you what, you tease a New Yorker with something like a warm welcoming spring, and then take it away, you’re poking a bear.

So these people were pissed off.  Not only were the trains running late and the rain making everything smell like wet dog, mother nature was jerking them around pretty hard.

By the way, there is a fundamental law of nature that says a crowded train will always move slower.  Like, painfully slow.  “I may as well have just walked the 120 blocks,” slow.

Luckily the crowd started to thin out and the train started to speed up.  The stench of wet, angry New Yorker didn’t go anywhere but at least I eventually got a seat.

I showed up to work 15 minutes late and really wasn’t happy about it.  I hate being late to work.

It was a long shift.  An eight hour day usually isn’t that hard, but I was already in a bad mood when I got there.  I felt like I was back in high school math class; trying not to watch the clock, and every time I do, it’s only been 60 seconds.  And occasionally the clock appears to be going backwards.

The icing on this cake made of anger and broken wills was that the theater was hotter than the Molten Core in summer time.  It was like a sauna.  And when I say that I mean that the only thing that was missing was a couple of fat, hairy old Italian men setting in the corner discussing how they need to, “handle the new union chief, and send him his ‘retirement check’.”

Eight hours and no dinner break later, I was finally on my way home.  I was relieved that the rain had gone from ‘monsoon’ to ‘light mist’.

Apparently the subway station didn’t get the memo.  Everything was dripping and leaking and oozing what I really hope was just water.

Because it was after midnight I had to deal with the ‘late-night’ subway schedule.  For those wondering, the day schedule is a train every 6-12 minutes.  The night schedule is a train sitting in the station while you try to swipe your metro card only to get “Too fast”, “Please try again” “Swipe again at this turnstile” errors, only to have the train close its doors and pull away when you finally get through the turnstile–and then wait 30-45 minutes for the next train to show up.

So 45 minutes later I was on an uptown number 3 train.  Not to be outdone by the 3 train I took nearly 10 hours earlier, this train had the old, angry, possibly drunk and/or mentally deranged homeless man peeing in the corner and singing the Star Spangled Banner. At the next stop I moved to the next car, which contained a nice looking old lady smoking a giant cigar.  Seriously, it was HUGE.  I wish I’d gotten a picture.  But I didn’t really want to inhale the smog she was emitting so at the next station I moved on to the next car.  I sat down across from a young couple arguing about the rent or car payment or some nonsense.  Since it was nearly 1 am and I was really tired, I decided not to press my luck by moving to yet another car so I just sat there and listened to them bicker.

I would tell you about these two in detail but that story would take up an entire post in and of itself.  So I’ll just sum up by saying they were absolutely stereotypical New Yorkers.  Imagine the Costanza’s from Seinfeld only in their late 20’s and you have a pretty good idea what I’m talking about.  And she wasn’t above getting the people around her involved in the argument to try and help prove her point.  I was smart enough not to fall into that trap, but sadly the guy next to me wasn’t.  Poor guy.  He got off at 14th St, but I don’t think that was his stop…

Aaaaaanyway, around 1:40am the train finally lumbered into the 116th street station.  Of course the mist had returned to monsoon status but at this point I just didn’t care.  I swam home and shook myself off like a wet dog in my entry way.  I took off my shoes, walked into the apartment, dropped my bag, and changed into my pajamas.  I was about ready to plop down on the couch for a lovely evening of relaxing television when I remembered that I still needed to feed the pets and take out the trash.

I put my clothes back on and hauled the garbage bag down to the curb.  I’m guessing that my roommate must be allergic to trash bags, or carrying things down stairs, or something, because I’ve never seen him take out the garbage.  I trudged back up the stairs, dried myself off, changed and fed the pets.

So hopefully now you have a good idea of how annoyed I was at this point.  It had been a long hard day and I was in no mood to put up with anyone’s nonsense.  I laid down on the couch and tried to decide if it would be worth gathering up all the garbage bags I’d taken out and putting them in my roommates room…but I ultimately decided it wouldn’t be worth it.

Just when I was on the brink of going over the edge, I noticed two little ears pop up next to the couch down by my feet.  It seems I’d left the cage open and a certain black and white lagamorph had taken the opportunity to escape.  Normally I would have been annoyed and tried to chase her back into the cage, but I was curious to see what she’d do.

I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again there was not one, but two rabbits on the couch down by my feet.  I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them again, they had moved from my feet to my waist.  I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them I was nose to nose with Samantha, my little black and white dutch rabbit.  Her sister, Kate (a white and gray Netherland Dwarf), was right behind her.  They had a very distinct look on their faces.

“We want raisins.”

“And petting.”

I couldn’t help myself.  I busted up laughing.  It was amazing how these two little bundles of trouble managed to make every bad thing that had happened during the day fade away until it was almost like they never occurred.  It was exceptionally cute because typically my rabbits don’t want to be touched at all, let alone spend time on my lap.  It was just so nice that they seemed to pick up on the fact that I’d had a terrible day, and even though they had an ulterior motive of getting raisins, they came to cheer me up.

They’ve got me trained pretty well though.  Anytime they prance up to me with those cute little eyes, I always give them raisins.  Even if I’m in the middle of a raid.  In fact Samantha jumped on my lap the other day during that ICC run I mentioned in my last post.  And of course, I gave her raisins and petting.

Now if only I can train them to stop eating the carpet…

“[Insert clever sign off phrase here]”

~Fizz