Category Archives: wtf

Things That Are Classy

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This week in things that are classy:

• This morning on the bus, I saw a businessman in khakis, loafers, a button-down shirt, a tie, and a hoodie with little 69s all over it.

• This morning outside of my office, I saw a person sleeping on the sidewalk under a giant, fluffy, white down comforter. The smallest corner of a cardboard box peeked out from under the end, but otherwise, the thing flowed over the mound of person to make what looked like a bloated white belly. A suitcase stood nearby, clothes spilling out of it. I could only assume that a woman had kicked her boyfriend out of the house but sent him with the nice luggage and the biggest blanket to keep him comfortable until she decides to forgive him.

The Right Way to Eat a Bagel

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This morning on my way to work, I saw a man eating a poppyseed bagel on the subway.

Good story, right?

No, but the interesting part was that he was eating it like a sandwich. A cream cheese sandwich. And when I approached Nik, my co-worker who regularly tempts me with bagels on Fridays, he said, “Uh, yeah, how else would you eat it?” My other co-worker (and roommate) Jack also acted like it would actually be weird to eat the halves separately.

But that’s what I’ve done my entire life! You buy the bagel whole with a slit down the center, you toast the halves, you cream cheese them, and you eat them one at a time. Sure, the top half of the bagel has all of the flavoring and the bottom half is just bread, but that’s why you eat the bottom half first! Just because the bagel cart man or your local Tim Hortons squishes the halves back together when they hand them over doesn’t mean they’re meant to be eaten that way.

But now I really, really want to eat them that way, with the cream cheese oozing between my fingers with each bite. Baaaaaaaaageeeeeeeeel.

Salt bagel with pumpkin cream cheese from Bricktown Bagel or Elite Bagel
salt bagel with pumpkin cream cheese from Bricktown Bagel in Queens

As If Thongs Weren’t Creepy Enough to Begin With

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Kamran and I were doing laundry in the basement of his building this weekend. We’re under the impression that we’re the only people who even bother to clean out the lint traps in the twenty or so dryers in the laundry room, so it was no surprise when, after we put our own clothes in one of them, we noticed something left by someone else sticking to the inside of our chosen dryer. I was about to reach for it wordlessly when Kamran noticed it, too, and plucked it out before I could.

Unrolled, it was sticky on one side, quilted on the other, wide at one end, and tapering off at the other end to a very thin strip. Neither of us freaked out about it, because we’d never seen such a thing.

“This isn’t a maxi pad, is it?” he asked, mostly joking.

“Um. I think it’s a thong pantyliner,” I said with a mixture of dread and wonder.

And so Kamran danced around the room, trying to fling off this thing that was now stuck to his hand. And then he wiped his hand on me.


So, is this a real thing–a thong pantyliner? And does it make anyone else feel bad that:

a) this thing exists because there’s an actual market for a product that lets you show off your butt while also collecting your vag drippings, and
b) you weren’t feminine enough to know about it, either?

The Only Hope I Have This Christmas Season is the Hope That You’ll Develop Lung Cancer

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There seems to be this misconception outside of NYC that all the things you hear about New Yorkers being mean are untrue, that people living in the city are actually helpful and unselfish despite the stories to the contrary.

Sometimes, to tell the truth, something wonderful will happen here, and I’ll start to think maybe I’ve misjudged everyone.

But then I’ll peer out the bus window, through the glass bus shelter, and into the drugstore at 42nd and Lexington and see this lady smoking inside:

I tell myself she’s smoking one of those fake cigarettes that only emits water vapor, but I think we both know that’s not true.

Becoming a Millionaire, One Stolen Lightbulb at a Time

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I moved from Williamsburg, Brooklyn to Downtown Brooklyn this weekend and hired a couple of strongmen to haul my things for me in their cargo van. I found them through a site where movers bid on your job based on how much stuff you have and chose them because their user reviews were all perfect. They did an amazing job of packing all of my things into their van and were nice, friendly guys to boot.

My new landlord/roommate/co-worker/superfriend, Jack, and I spent a few minutes rearranging furniture after they left, and then we decided to take a trip to the Brooklyn IKEA just because there’s a free shuttle bus that stops right up the street from our new place. And also because they have Swedish meatballs and lingonberry juice. When Jack went to lock the door, the locking mechanism malfunctioned, so we stopped at the front desk on the way out to ask the super to fix it.

When we got back to the apartment a few hours later, the lock was fixed, and our separate bathrooms were begging to be christened. We’re still kind of unsure how much of our restroom dealings are audible to each other, so I decided to set some things up in my bedroom to keep Jack from having stage fright. I grabbed my lamp from the living room, plugged it in in my bedroom, and flipped the switch, but it didn’t work. I moved it to another outlet and tried again, but it still didn’t turn on. I called to Jack, “I don’t think there’s any electricity in my bedroom!” I reached down inside the lampshade to tighten the lightbulb, but there was no bulb in it.

Now, that lamp sat unused in my old bedroom for many months. I’m not even entirely sure it had a lightbulb when it left my apartment. But I’m positive that when one of the movers handed it to me from the van, he’d taken the shade and the base and screwed them together using a fluorescent bulb, which is what my old roommate and I used. I’d taken the lamp upstairs to the new apartment, left it in the living room, and didn’t touch it again until after we got back from IKEA.

Immediately, Jack blamed the super. He said, “Think about it. You’d notice if something big like a TV was missing, but you’d never suspect him of stealing something small like a lightbulb. I’ll bet he does this all over the building.”

But I, usually the one so quick to assume the worst of people, said, “No way. Obviously the most logical explanation is that the movers . . . happen to carry a stray bulb around with them . . . because people are always moving lamps without bulbs in them . . . and . . . this was the easiest way to ensure those people’s shades wouldn’t fall off the bases and break.”

No?

Either way, WTF?!