Good Morning, Sunshine

Mornings are exercises in suffering in which I refuse to take part. Generally, I don't even consider joining the day until foreign substances have entered my body and crowbarred the eyelids open. This morning was particularly painful following a last hurrah sort of evening the night before, and to make matters worse, I've temporarily sworn off coffee.

To wit, things were grim.

In any event, I staggered into the bathroom this morning with a vague intention of getting to work on time. As I blindly groped around the shower trying to turn it on, I heard an ominous metallic scraping sound behind me. When I turned around, I saw in horror that my watch, laid on the edge of the sink, had VANISHED. It wasn't on the floor. It wasn't under the bathmat. It wasn't still on the ledge of the sink, though I checked several times to confirm. In a harrowing state of affairs, my watch had somehow SLITHERED from its perch, crawled across the bowl of the sink and dive-bombed down the drain.

Plumbing is not one of my strengths, but I gamely got down under the sink and batted at the pipes, hoping for some kind of open sesame button. Nothing. I ran down the hall to the Eddie the super's and banged on his door for a while. No response. I called my roommate, who in an extremely unlikely state of affairs was not in the apartment, but received only a snarl to 'call Eddie' before he hung up on me. I called my mother: unhelpful. I went back to the super's apartment for one more try, and happily managed to catch him coming in the door of the building.

As it happened, plumbing is not one of Eddie's strengths either. He managed to wedge himself into the cabinet under the sink, and for a while lots of banging and scraping and muttered Spanish imprecations were all that emerged. Finally, pouring sweat, the poor man extracted himself from the cabinet. 'It's open, my friend!', he exclaimed proudly, 'but no watch'. 'No watch?!?' I wailed. 'No watch', he confirmed. We peered down the sink and indeed, had a clear view of the cabinet floor below. I resisted an urge to check under the bathmat once more. 'But where else could it BE?' I beseeched him. 'Wait', he said, 'I check the other pipe.' This seemed to be a very good idea. And sure enough, further digging around produced the runaway. Eddie, justifiably very proud of himself, got to his feet to wash the scum off the watch for me. 'STOP!', I shrieked, 'the pipe's still open!!' Too late; water came pouring out onto the floor.

'Sorry, my friend,' he said, 'mornings not so good for me.'

I'm on a Beach, Not at a Bullfight

When I am riding the elevator at work I generally employ closed eyes and an inner mantra to keep my 'I am free and on a beach' bubble intact. My office is on the top floor of the building, and invariably the elevator, after forcing a lengthy wait for its arrival, will abuse me further by opening on every floor before deigning to arrive at mine. A typical ride is an endless round of door openings; people peering in and saying "going up?" when the light outside clearly shows otherwise; people squeezing on at the last minute, then jumping out just as the doors are closing again, thereby jamming the elevator and requiring application of force to the doors to regain momentum; and an influx of crazies, squalling children, wheelchairs, and excessively large rear ends. Such is elevator life in a hospital.

Today I was doing my usual exhausted 'I am not here' slump in the back corner when all at once I heard, "S--, you're looking like a flamenco dancer today." What was this new horror? I definitely did not know the person speaking from the far side of the crowded elevator; he must have read my name off my ID and cruelly decided to burst my inner monologue. I peered over at him. "That's a nice skirt," he added, "you look like you're going to a bullfight." Everyone on the elevator turned to check me out. I offered a vague smile and thank you, and an impatient glance at the slowly decending floor display. "You should go to Toledo, they'd really love you over there." "Lotta LOOOOVE on this elevator today!!" crowed a nurse at the front, as the elevator finally, and not a moment too soon, shuddered to a stop and belched me out.

I'm Terribly Sorry

There's a guy who patrols my neighborhood, making his living, or perhaps just amusing himself, by preying on the young or otherwise naive. His gag is a furrowed brow and air of barely controlled panic, and he comes dashing up and, gasping for breath, blurts out, "I'm terribly sorry, but would it be inconceivably rude of me to ask you for a minute of your time and some help with a cab?" Some drivel follows about his etchings being locked inside a friend's apartment, but the friend fell down the sewer grate and took the keys with him, and he's SO sorry, but it's such an emergency as his gallery show is opening tomorrow, and the story continues until the point when your polite smile begins to hurt and you would give him some cash to just stop talking. But you can't because you're a sucker and gently reared, and helpless against his nervous frenzy.

That would be the first encounter, anyway. An earnest student of New York, these days I am hard-hearted and savvy, cured, a la smoked herring, by diesel exhaust and eau de drunk on subway. Tonight I was strolling home after a very nice dinner at the cousins', enjoying the balmy 50-degree air and my first Tasti D*lite since last summer....chocolate and vanilla swirl with chocolate sprinkles in a sugar cone...ah, Tasti. I crossed Bleecker, vaguely noticing a man on crutches limping in my direction. "I'm so sorry," he said, lurching to a halt in front of me. "I know this is completely rude, but..." "Let me guess," I interrupted, "you locked your painkiller prescription in a friend's apartment." The con artist did a very abrupt and graceful 180 for a man on crutches, and I serenely kept ambling down the street, enjoying the smell of spring.