Category Archives: living in new york sucks so hard

Blame the Bus Driver

Posted by katie ett on December 7, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard
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I was going to start a new series today about beautiful things I see from my bus window on my way to and from work. Taking the subway shaves as much as twenty minutes off of my commute time, but riding the bus is an opportunity for me to see every neighborhood from Murray Hill to Battery Park each morning and afternoon.

I was going to tell you about the little boy on my bus who pointed to the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral and said, “Taj Mahal!” and whose mother tried to tell him where Armenia was and that moment when she realized she had no idea. Or the very tallest guy walking the very smallest and fluffiest puppy. Or the girl in the camel hair skirt with the matching cape.

But instead I’ll tell you yet another story to illustrate how New Yorkers are absolutely the most detestable people in the world.

Read the rest here! (I know I’m annoying, but I get paid per click, so I have to make you go over there to read the story.)

Caught in the Train Doors

Posted by katie ett on December 1, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york sucks so hard
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This morning, a polite young man let me into a packed R train first, even though there was a chance he wasn’t going to fit in after me. I flattened myself as much as I could to allow him in, too, and as he tried to squeeze between the doors at the last minute, the sleeve of his leather jacket got caught. I stared at the fabric, pressed into the crack between the doors so tightly he couldn’t pull it out, and remembered a time when the same thing happened to me.

I was wearing a plaid cape and flew into the 4 train, superhero style, in the last seconds before the doors closed. One side of the cape got caught in the doors, and in the moments before I knew the train would begin to move, I had all of these terrifying daymares about what might happen as we moved through the tunnel:

Read the rest here!

Bus Stop Line Jump

Posted by katie ett on November 10, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under funner times on the bus, living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality, why i'm better than everyone else
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Kamran and I were in Hell’s Kitchen Sunday night, having traveled to the exact opposite side of the island to pour our months of collected pocket change in one of those machines that exchanges it for gift certificates. We were waiting at a bus stop with our riches in hand, staring longingly at the side-by-side 99-cent pizza and Gray’s Papaya, when a man approached with a large instrument in a case strapped to his back. We were standing just to the left of the bus shelter, leaving enough room for someone to slip past us in line if he wanted to be a jerk. But he stood behind us instead, avoiding the waist-high pile of garbage bags on our other side.

We stayed in that configuration until the bus arrived some minutes later, when the man with the instrument came out of nowhere to stand in front of me in the line of people waiting to get on the bus. I couldn’t even help myself when my blood took a sudden surge; I simply had to march around him and insert myself back into the line where I rightfully belonged. The fact that he had waited until the last second to make his move made me so much angrier than if he had just done it from the moment he came to the stop. At least then he could’ve pretended to be looking for a seat or a place to rest his instrument in the shelter.

Read the rest here!

Insulting Jerks the Classy Way

Posted by katie ett on November 2, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york sucks so hard, my uber-confrontational personality
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Last Saturday, Kamran and I were out for a pleasant jaunt around the city to enjoy what seems like it may be one of the last days of nice weather. We were crossing 42nd Street on 5th Avenue in front of the Main Library when an aging compact car rounded the corner from the left and attempted to cut in front of us before we could slow him. We were perfectly within the limits of the crosswalk sign, of course, and continued ahead as such. This clearly displeased the driver, who kept not just inching toward us but, like, feeting toward us threateningly.

We were sipping bubble tea, and I had my camera slung ’round my neck, so maybe the guy thought we were a couple of podunk tourists, but this queen bee of the city doesn’t get messed with like that, so I bored a hole in the guy straight through his windshield and said, “Hey, F*** YOU!”

Because my mama, god rest her soul, raised me to be classy.

It took him a couple of seconds to recover from these words he most assuredly had never heard come out of the mouth of such a sweet-looking lady, but then he retorted, “Same to you!” while finishing his turn and continuing down the street. I felt fine about yelling at the dude, because you get your car out of my pedestrian city, a-hole, but I was a little upset that the first thing I resort to in times of crisis is cursing. (Not that you didn’t know that.)

I first decided I should’ve yelled, “Come at me, bro!”, but then I remembered that the guy was in a car and would’ve killed me had he come at me. I asked Kamran what I should have said instead, and he suggested, “I’m going to tell your mom on you when I see her later tonight.” Which are pretty strong words from someone who enacted a rule that I can only insult his mom once a day.

Well, luckily, my friend Sarah posted this on Facebook yesterday to help me out, from Tastefully Offensive:

So next time someone attempts to plow me with his car, I’m going to look him square in his beslubbering little elf-skinned eye and yell,

“THOU GLEEKING FAT-KIDNEYED WHEY-FACE!“

NYC: The Really Hot Boyfriend Who Beats Me

Posted by katie ett on September 19, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Filed under living in new york is neat, living in new york sucks so hard, travels
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The Hamptons feels so far away from New York City that I sometimes forget I’m still in the same time zone. We ride around in cars there and eat pastries on the empty patios of cafés and stock up for the weekend in grocery stores with aisles big enough to fit carts. The town has ten boutiques, and the people who live there make conversation with you for no reason.

But on the drive home, you quickly realize how close to the city you still are. On the road trips I used to make in college to South Carolina and Chicago, I remember stopping for gas at highway exits that had little else. A truck stop, an adult bookstore, and a McDonald’s perched on a hill with nothing but miles and miles of farmland as far as I could see. I always felt like I was on the prairie, even if I was really in the middle of the Appalachians. On the way back from the Hamptons, if you blink your eye, you’re in Queens. The exits all lead to neighborhoods with constantly-busy streets, strollers full of babies of every ethnicity, skateboarding teenagers, shopping bags on every arm.

There’s no rest. I feel my chest tighten as soon as the row houses come into view and a taxi cuts us off. The fact that I hold my breath all day in NYC is only noticeable after a weekend away with nothing but exhalations. It’s like I’m always bracing myself for the worst.

Brooklyn Bridge

But then we’re on the Brooklyn Bridge, and the city’s skyline is the most exciting one I’ve ever seen, and I tell my friend Jeff, “If I’m this happy to see New York after only a weekend away, imagine how I’d feel after a year.” It’s scary to imagine yourself as a tourist here, older and settled somewhere else and without any more ties to this city than to London or Tokyo. Part of the thing about living in NYC is feeling like you’re in on a special secret that no one else knows about.

Well, no one but the 18 million other people who live here.