A friend recently asked me how I managed the adjustment from smalltown Ohio to big city culture, and I told her I was prepared for everything but how truly out-for-themselves people are in NYC. I told her that in Ohio, there seems to be more of a collective conscious, a bit of an “if I do this horrible thing to this person, everyone’s going to find out” mindset, and a bit of an “if I do this nice thing for this person, both of us will benefit from my niceness, and the world will be a better place” mindset. She asked if I think NYC has changed me, and it just so happened that I had the perfect story to illustrate my very definite yes.

Last Saturday afternoon, my boyfriend and I took advantage of the end of Summer/start of Fall weather with brunch at Bar Boulud, a stroll through Central Park, wrestling with giant stuffed dogs at FAO Schwarz, and buying a pound of chocolate-covered everything at Dylan’s Candy Bar to start getting our blood sugar prepared for Halloween.

We hopped on the downtown M15 bus around 4:30 p.m., and it was packed, as usual, with elderly people, because only elderly people leave the house before 8 p.m. on weekends. We stood for a couple of stops, sat down for a couple of stops when two seats were freed up, and then stood back up when we saw a feeble-looking couple board the bus.

Read the rest.