A few months ago, making my way home down 13th street, I was approached by a tall, relatively attractive woman around my age, wearing glasses, clothes from the clearance section of Urban Outfitters, and a look of distress. She had red hair and a ton of freckles, spoke confidently and looked me straight in the eye when she said “My purse and backpack were stolen while I was trying clothes on in Bloomingdales, they had my wallet, passport and plane tickets in them and now I can’t get home, or anything to eat in the meantime. Do you have any change?” I did. In fact, I had more than change, I had singles. I gave her two and wished her good luck, and she snatched the bills from my hand in no more an attractive agency than Gollum for his precious ring.
That was back in May, and the creepy way she nabbed my two clams, should have prompted more than an afterthought that there may have been something fishy about my encounter. Visiting Portland, I learned it’s all too common for rich kids to play poor punks, just so they can get some cash they don’t have to “work” for. From what I observed, debasing yourself regularly is a lot of work, unless, I guess, you think it’s all a joke or a game. Once their change is in hand, these kids with self-applied cheek-dirt drive off in mom or dad’s Benz. Some friends on the west coast have grown accustomed to saying “get a job” to beggars on the street. These kids looked like they could kick my ass, so I was never so bold to accuse them of slacking, nor ever will be.
So today, with the NYU semester almost back in session, I saw the same girl; red hair tied back, turquoise hipster-clearance-rack-shirt, glasses, walking painfully slowly around my neighborhood begging for change again. I wanted to say something. Or stop her in the middle of her lies as she approached everyone around me and scream “HALT!” or something equally medieval. Could I have called the police? In the end, I decided there was really nothing I could do, so I blogged about it.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Well, This Happened
My roommate and I have had some rough patches in the past. Like the time she came back from Peru and the light was out in the kitchen – she nearly had a heart attack. Or the time she flipped out because one of my guests accidentally used her toothpaste. I mean, she like, really flipped out. Given that such small things have sparked some near-earth shattering dialogues, I’m really surprised she did the creepiest thing ever.
I stumbled into my very very small apartment at 5am, having noshed at Yaffa Café and drank enough Jameson and diet cokes to leave me too inebriated for bar scrabble. The lights were on in the kitchen, and my roommate’s door was completely open, with, again, the lights on, but sheets and blankets thrown all over the place. The door to the bathroom was closed, so my logic suggested that she too had been drinking, and was rather sick at a rather late hour of the morning. I went to open my room to find my door locked.
“Silly me,” I thought. “In a rush to meet my sisters for dinner, I closed the door to my room not realizing it had been locked, and now I’m locked out of my room and drunk, and may have to sleep in the bathtub when my roommate is done vomiting in there.” Fortunately, or unfortunately, this was not the case.
Suddenly, my door swung open, to reveal my roommate in nothing but her underwear, holding my makeup compacts. Without an apology, she just kept saying she didn’t know how she wound up there, and then retreated to her own room, lamenting over drunk text messages she sent to her not-boyfriend.
Walking into my room, lights still off, I noticed my bed covered with clutter left there from before I went to dinner. She must have slept on uncomfortable plastic objects, and without a blanket. I still have no idea what she was doing there, or why she was holding my makeup, or why she had locked herself in.
She apologized this morning, giving some sort of half-assed hypothesis as to why or how she could justify my finding her naked in my room, including theories of "too much booze" and “nightmares.” Having just returned from two very long vacations, it makes me ask myself if she does that often, or maybe, out of spite, if she’s ever done anything else with my toothpaste.
I stumbled into my very very small apartment at 5am, having noshed at Yaffa Café and drank enough Jameson and diet cokes to leave me too inebriated for bar scrabble. The lights were on in the kitchen, and my roommate’s door was completely open, with, again, the lights on, but sheets and blankets thrown all over the place. The door to the bathroom was closed, so my logic suggested that she too had been drinking, and was rather sick at a rather late hour of the morning. I went to open my room to find my door locked.
“Silly me,” I thought. “In a rush to meet my sisters for dinner, I closed the door to my room not realizing it had been locked, and now I’m locked out of my room and drunk, and may have to sleep in the bathtub when my roommate is done vomiting in there.” Fortunately, or unfortunately, this was not the case.
Suddenly, my door swung open, to reveal my roommate in nothing but her underwear, holding my makeup compacts. Without an apology, she just kept saying she didn’t know how she wound up there, and then retreated to her own room, lamenting over drunk text messages she sent to her not-boyfriend.
Walking into my room, lights still off, I noticed my bed covered with clutter left there from before I went to dinner. She must have slept on uncomfortable plastic objects, and without a blanket. I still have no idea what she was doing there, or why she was holding my makeup, or why she had locked herself in.
She apologized this morning, giving some sort of half-assed hypothesis as to why or how she could justify my finding her naked in my room, including theories of "too much booze" and “nightmares.” Having just returned from two very long vacations, it makes me ask myself if she does that often, or maybe, out of spite, if she’s ever done anything else with my toothpaste.
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