It is not my fault!
August 17, 2001
When I moved to the Big City I thought I would lose weight. After all, most of my daily transportation requires walking. There is a big obstacle to losing weight in the Big City. Food.
My morning walk to work is four blocks long. On this walk from the bus station to the office I pass five coffee and donut carts. These carts are about five feet long and three feet wide. A man stands in the cart and sells coffee, donuts, bagels, fried eggs on a roll, hot chocolate, ice coffee, etc. I have no idea how this is done. Where does he put the grill? The coffee urn? Where does the water come from? These carts are simply rolled onto the sidewalk. Permits are not needed for location. They just find a spot and park their cart. I’m told that turf battles between these entrepreneurs are common.
In addition to the coffee carts we have the produce stands. Some are full time stands. Others simply appear on the sidewalks in the morning. Prunes are currently 99 cents a pound. My father tells me this is a good price. I pass four of these operations.
Lunchtime brings in the second wave. The ever-popular hot dog cart appears on almost every corner. There are actual lines of people waiting to purchase the soggy product. You also can obtain your supersized salted pretzel from the hotdog cart. The price of a hotdog ranges from $1.00 to $1.50. The hotdogs are the same wherever you go. It is only the price that changes. Sometimes you can even negotiate the price. You don’t want to be behind the guy that decides he needs to save 25 cents.
Next to, or at least close to, the hot dog cart will be a vendor selling bags of roasted nuts. Peanuts, cashews, macadamia, etc. These nuts appear to have been soaked in sugar, and then roasted. They are addicting. I’m currently looking to join a 12-step program.
If you decide to run an errand on your lunch hour you must run a gauntlet of these vendors. The most insidious are the Mr. Softie trucks. Every other block there is parked a Mr. Softie truck, just waiting for me. It is almost as though they are calling my name.
There are hundreds of restaurants in a two-block radius of my office. The selection available covers any type of cuisine you can imagine. Go ahead and name any type of food you enjoy and it can be found within a five-minute walk from the front of my building. These restaurants are typically eight feet wide and 120 feet deep. The biggest challenge in any of these joints is figuring out how to order. Where do you stand?
What do you say? What happens if you offend the guy behind the counter? We aren’t working with the smiling kids at suburban fast food restaurants. These guys look like they are veterans of the gulf war. I’m not talking about the winning side.
With all of this selection where do I go? McDonald’s. Of all of the restaurants in the area, Mickey D’s provides the fastest service. The scene resembles the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. There are no lines. There are no pleasantries and there is no mustard on the burgers. (It appears New Yorkers, as a rule, do not like mustard on hamburger. Hotdogs yes, hamburgers no.) It is organized chaos. I walk in, yell my order (NUMBER 2 MEAL, DIET COKE, MEDIUM, TO GO) and I am handed just that (after forking over $4.97). I tried going to the same McDonald’s on a Saturday. It was weird. Everyone was trying to form lines. The tourists had invaded.
This is why I’m not losing weight. It’s not my fault.
Friday, August 17, 2001
Thursday, August 02, 2001
Traffic
Watching traffic in the Big City is much like watching the ballet.
That is, if the ballet were choreographed by someone on crack.
Every morning thousands of buses, cars and trucks carrying millions of people enter Manhattan. If you didn’t already know let me tell you, Manhattan is an island. To get on to or off the island you must take either a bridge or a tunnel. So, you have the perfect example of the “bottleneck”. Traffic from upstate New York, Connecticut, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey all coming together at spans and tunnels built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. To make this possible there has to be a system. A way to prioritize traffic. There needs to be a plan that allows the orderly flow of vehicles. The official plan appears to be “Chicken”.
You know. Chicken. The game drivers play in their cars. The game where you come at each other until one gets scared and gets out of the way of the other.
If you want to get onto the bridge or into the tunnel you must “merge” with other traffic. Usually you must merge several times. Basic courtesy says that drivers should take turns letting one each other into the lane. What a plan. To think drivers will consistently show courtesy is perhaps too much to expect. Especially when they are late to work. Let’s be clear about this, everyone is late to work.
This is one reason why I take the bus.
There are three basic types of buses operating in this city; the city bus, the commuter bus and the tourist double decker bus. (When the double decker buses go by I wave to the tourists. It confuses them). When you watch television shows that are based in New York City you don’t see the characters taking the bus to work, or to dinner, or to a movie. If you see them take transportation you see them getting into and out of a cab. This is because television writers either don’t live in this city, or if they do live in the city they are making enough money that they can afford to take a cab wherever they are going.
In most cities the people taking the bus are consider to be losers. In New York City this is not the case. There is no stigma attached to riding the bus. There are many ways to travel around New York City and they are all detestable.
In most cities, if you are going to take a bus somewhere, you need to consult a time schedule. In Manhattan, during the day, the buses run regularly, usually every couple of minutes. If you miss the bus you don’t panic and you don’t run. The next bus will be along in a couple of minutes. It is a wonderful system. There is at least one problem though. Seats on city buses are designed for supermodels. Most of us find our butts do not fit neatly in the curved part of the plastic seats. This means that when there are two normal people sharing a seat supposedly built for two, there is a lot of togetherness.
I have had long-term romantic relationships with less physical contact.
The situation on the commuter buses isn’t much different. Instead of plastic seats, the seats are upholstered which makes them more comfortable. On the other hand the upholstery makes the seats much harder to clean. When someone spills his or her drink on a city bus you can see the puddle and choose to not sit there. When the seat is upholstered you don’t know about the problem until you get that uncomfortable feeling that is usually associated with Depends.
The seats on the commuter buses are also about 2/3 the size of the average butt. Every time I ride one of these buses I have a single wish. “Please, let me sit next to someone with an eating disorder”.
The average first experience in reviewing a bus map in New York City is much like the average first experience with reviewing the circulatory system in a class on human anatomy. There are hundreds of routes; each of them assigned a color. Many people never get past the initial shock of the map. They have found the bus that takes them to and from work, and that is all they understand. If they need to go somewhere else in Manhattan they are lost. I, on the other hand, have studied the map. I know where I’m going. I have the look of confidence that causes others to ask me for directions. For example, I was recently asked how to get to Broadway. I answered, “Get a good agent”. That wasn’t considered to be helpful but I thought it was amusing.
I have not yet become lost using the NYC Bus System. However, there have been times that I have been “routed to an alternative destination”. Let’s just say it is important to notice when the sign on the front of the bus says, “limited”.
That is all for today. Take care and happy commuting.
That is, if the ballet were choreographed by someone on crack.
Every morning thousands of buses, cars and trucks carrying millions of people enter Manhattan. If you didn’t already know let me tell you, Manhattan is an island. To get on to or off the island you must take either a bridge or a tunnel. So, you have the perfect example of the “bottleneck”. Traffic from upstate New York, Connecticut, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island and New Jersey all coming together at spans and tunnels built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. To make this possible there has to be a system. A way to prioritize traffic. There needs to be a plan that allows the orderly flow of vehicles. The official plan appears to be “Chicken”.
You know. Chicken. The game drivers play in their cars. The game where you come at each other until one gets scared and gets out of the way of the other.
If you want to get onto the bridge or into the tunnel you must “merge” with other traffic. Usually you must merge several times. Basic courtesy says that drivers should take turns letting one each other into the lane. What a plan. To think drivers will consistently show courtesy is perhaps too much to expect. Especially when they are late to work. Let’s be clear about this, everyone is late to work.
This is one reason why I take the bus.
There are three basic types of buses operating in this city; the city bus, the commuter bus and the tourist double decker bus. (When the double decker buses go by I wave to the tourists. It confuses them). When you watch television shows that are based in New York City you don’t see the characters taking the bus to work, or to dinner, or to a movie. If you see them take transportation you see them getting into and out of a cab. This is because television writers either don’t live in this city, or if they do live in the city they are making enough money that they can afford to take a cab wherever they are going.
In most cities the people taking the bus are consider to be losers. In New York City this is not the case. There is no stigma attached to riding the bus. There are many ways to travel around New York City and they are all detestable.
In most cities, if you are going to take a bus somewhere, you need to consult a time schedule. In Manhattan, during the day, the buses run regularly, usually every couple of minutes. If you miss the bus you don’t panic and you don’t run. The next bus will be along in a couple of minutes. It is a wonderful system. There is at least one problem though. Seats on city buses are designed for supermodels. Most of us find our butts do not fit neatly in the curved part of the plastic seats. This means that when there are two normal people sharing a seat supposedly built for two, there is a lot of togetherness.
I have had long-term romantic relationships with less physical contact.
The situation on the commuter buses isn’t much different. Instead of plastic seats, the seats are upholstered which makes them more comfortable. On the other hand the upholstery makes the seats much harder to clean. When someone spills his or her drink on a city bus you can see the puddle and choose to not sit there. When the seat is upholstered you don’t know about the problem until you get that uncomfortable feeling that is usually associated with Depends.
The seats on the commuter buses are also about 2/3 the size of the average butt. Every time I ride one of these buses I have a single wish. “Please, let me sit next to someone with an eating disorder”.
The average first experience in reviewing a bus map in New York City is much like the average first experience with reviewing the circulatory system in a class on human anatomy. There are hundreds of routes; each of them assigned a color. Many people never get past the initial shock of the map. They have found the bus that takes them to and from work, and that is all they understand. If they need to go somewhere else in Manhattan they are lost. I, on the other hand, have studied the map. I know where I’m going. I have the look of confidence that causes others to ask me for directions. For example, I was recently asked how to get to Broadway. I answered, “Get a good agent”. That wasn’t considered to be helpful but I thought it was amusing.
I have not yet become lost using the NYC Bus System. However, there have been times that I have been “routed to an alternative destination”. Let’s just say it is important to notice when the sign on the front of the bus says, “limited”.
That is all for today. Take care and happy commuting.
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