A Chorus of Tiny Violins

Part I : Introduction

Oy! Have you ever had one of those mornings where you're thinking about how to blog it and the phrase that keeps coming up is "as if that weren't enough"? I have experienced a string of crappy things so long I could knit a sweater for every impoverished child on earth and still have enough left to hang myself.

It started out lovely, I got up at 7:00 no problem, no grogginess. (I was having a dream about being in a movie with Laurence Fishburne called Laurence Wishburne, in which the man played himself as a bumbling genie who always granted the opposite of what you wished for. Yes, even my dreams are filled with stupid puns, which is why I was so happy to wake up and escape the lameness.) I showered. Oh right then my house keys were gone, my milk was spoiled, I spilled tea on my couch, I stubbed my little toe, and I couldn't find the Blacula DVD anywhere to return to Netflix. So now I was in a crappy mood, but the cheerful song in my head and the discovery of my house keys (under the fridge, I blame the cat) kept me optimistic. I got out of the house with time to spare.

Oh, but then. I stepped in a slush puddle, I had an unsavory run-in with a man on the street (more on that later), Idiot Boy was working the machine at Starbucks and forgot me and screwed up my order as usual, and then the 6 train wasn't even running and it took the girl on the loudspeaker 25 minutes to inform us of such, so we all had to take the smelly ol' bus that stops every 2 blocks and was crowded full of disgruntled people. The only saving grace of the morning is that I got to read about 50 pages of my novel while I waited for MTA to get its act together.

Part II : The Run-In

So let me tell you about this run-in. A year ago before I lived here, I visited New York over Christmas and New Year's. I was walking by myself down Christopher St. on a pleasant afternoon when this skinny hoodlum guy told me I had a sexy walk, to which I replied awkwardly "Oh... yeah ok... thanks." He then said he lived nearby, implying that he wanted me to come up so we could have what would probably be the worst sex ever. I declined, obviously, and he was kind enough to just leave, but what really stuck in my mind was that bizarre "sexy walk" comment, which I never thought I'd hear again because who says that?

Well, apparently more people than I think because it happened again this morning. I'm walking along, and this guy passes me and then calls back to me, and I thought I had dropped something. He looked decent enough, clean, but he had a quality similar to that hoodlum of Christmas past. He held an ice scraper. And the way he spoke to me: "I like the way you walk" didn't immediately remind me of the other time because I didn't think he was coming on to me. I thought he was making fun of me, but he looked sincere enough, so I said "Oh... yeah ok... thanks." He asked why I was in such a hurry (I walk fast) so I lied and said I was late for work. (It was 8:30, I was totally on time.) He asked if lived in the neighborhood, and I was thinking "No, idiot, I just like to walk around the Upper East Side before work to catch the sites and did you not just hear me tell you I was late?" but I said yeah and figured ok that's it. I walked on.

But then, ick, he's all "Wait, one quick question!" so I took a breath to control the roundhouse kick to the face I felt stirring and he said "So when do I get to see you again?" and that's when it all dawned on me. Sexy walk! Shit! First of all, see me again? We haven't seen each other in the first place. This is not a date. This is a creepy encounter on the sidewalk. I was afraid if I opened my mouth I'd say "As if, you're gross and skeezy and have a disquieting goatee" and then he'd bludgeon me with his ice scraper, so I went with "Oh... um....uh... what?" instead.

"Not gonna happen?" he Nancy Drewed.
"No," I confirmed and started to walk away.
"Wait, one more question." Jesus Christ.
I turned around. "What???" He tried to take my arm, I backed away, and he said "Don't be afraid of me. You dating anyone?"
Now I'm backing away. "I'm not afraid of you, and yeah, I'm seeing someone. Goodbye." But he wasn't done.
"You ever been with a black man before?" At this point I could have rushed him and knocked his teeth out. We were about 10 feet apart at this point, and he's shouting this at me with people walking by. It was probably the trashiest exchange my UES neighbors had heard in their charmed lives.
"No!" It was as much an answer to his question as a command to shut his face and not follow me.
"Wanna try it?" Are you deficient??? What about my demeanor and body language suggests that I might want to give you a shot? So I turned and walked away and said with my back to him "I really don't!"

I would say that ruined my morning, but my morning sucked to begin with. In conclusion, if this ever happens again, I'm paralyzing myself and getting a wheelchair. Sexy walk my ass, what the hell is wrong with people?