Dirty Laundry

Like many walk-up apartments in The City, my apartment building on 91st Street did not have the luxury of its own laundry facilities. Oh how I longed for washer and dryer access in my own building! However, since my neighborhood was largely residential there were plenty of laundromats nearby. But just the idea of lugging untold pounds of laundry in a big bag down 4 flights of stairs and out into the street (not to mention the cold, the rain or homeless people looking for a break) was not exactly an activity that I treasured. Eventually though, I got used to the brisk 2 block walk to my laundromat known simply as "The Mat". While there I eventually found it relaxing to read and wait for my laundry to be done while the TVs blared mindless junk in The Mat's 4 corners. I secretly ogled the hot Latinas performing the "Wash 'n Fold" duties of The Mat and tried to keep my distance from the frequent washers who talked to themselves a little too vociferously. Since I had become comfortable reading while my laundry was being done I started to do more serious reading than just the Times. During the period when I was trying to figure out whether or not I should go to graduate school I did all kinds of self analyses and answering of critical questions before making this monumental decision. It was during one of these deep trance-like periods of concentration that I had an unfortunate encounter with one of The Mat's other frequent customers.

While sitting in one of the molded plastic chairs, out of the corner of my eye two pre-adolescent African-American girls entered. They came towards me chattering and yammering all the way, each of them holding or eating something as well. They stopped right in front of me and continued their conversation right around me. I shifted in my seat and tried to convey my annoyance but clearly I needed to take more blatant action. But just as I was about to get up and re-locate the girl to my right moved right in front of me, turned her head towards me and let a piece of the sandwich she was eating fall right out of her mouth and onto my crossed knee. I recoiled in disgust but before I could react the girl reached out to my knee, picked up the morsel of food that had escaped and put it back in her mouth.
"Sorry", she deadpanned.
I looked at her questioningly and then went back to my reading without saying anything. I remained sitting there now exasperated on top of annoyed with these girls wondering if technically what had happened to me was that I had been vomited upon. Although, since there was no bile, I guess not. The girls soon moved on but now I felt like I needed a shower or something. What was odd was that the girls didn't think that what had happened was funny or anything. They didn't erupt in fits off laughter when the chewed food fell nearly in my lap but just went about their business like nothing had ever happened. I took this episode to be another instance of personal space being invaded in a large crowded city with not nearly enough space for everyone. In the suburbs, clearly, people don't have slobbered chewed food dropped on them by complete strangers. But maybe by those they love.

Back of My Neck Getting Dirty and Gritty

With the summer approaching I got to thinking about what summer was like in NYC. Like the U2 song "New York", the heat in New York often got so oppressive that walking about outside was like walking around a city with a hairdryer constantly in your face. The hot smelly breath of the city would wear you down.

Going out in the city in the evening very often did not offer up any kind of relief. In fact, sometimes the humidity would linger on into the evening such that you could break a sweat by simply walking around from bar to bar. Sweat began to gather often in as little as a couple of minutes. Among the most brutal places to be in the summer in New York was the subway. When I lived there and probably at a few select stops today - there is absolutely no ventilation on the platform. The heat is a step above the aforementioned hairdryer and is more like an oven. After a night out in the humdity, a hot wait for the subway ride home was the last thing I wanted. Since I was simply too cheap for a cab uptown I decided I needed to develop a strategy for how to better take the subway home in the heat of the summer.

Since I often went out downtown and lived on the Upper East Side I usually took the 6train home from Astor Place. Astor was a hot station just like any other but it did have something that many other stations did not which was the ability to see when trains are coming from a short set of stairs leading to the street. So what this meant was that essentially I could watch for the train from the relative cool of the stairs without having to wait on the hot steamy platform. The idea here was that when the train came you would bolt down the stairs, slide your Metrocard through the turnstile (hopefully without the dreaded "Please Swipe Again" message) and then quickly cross the platform and get on the train home. This strategy worked maybe 60% of the time greatly limiting my exposure to the unbearable heat of the subway. But as for those failed attempts representing the remaining 40% of the time - my Metrocard would fail to be read correctly by the turnstile forcing me to keep swiping while the subway pulled away or (even worse) I would get stuck behind someone whose Metrocard wasn't being correctly read who had been doing the exact same thing as I. This kind of coincidence really got me chapped such that I would almost audibly curse out the person in front of me.

Apartment Follies

It seemed that everyone in NYC had a charming story about their apartment and its unique character. Either I didn't have as much patience and tolerance as most people or my stories just lacked a certain charm but it seemed mainly that my apartment stories managed only to convey a sense of annoyance and elicited a period of head-shaking and sympathy from the listener.

One such story involved the pecular locking schema attached to the front door of my apartment on 91st Street. After about 3 years there, I had noticed that the lock on the front door was a little tempermental to say the least. It would open and lock depending on how you managed to jimmy and jamie it without, fortunately, creating any permanent problems. But one weekend afternoon it exacted its revenge. It was a Sunday and I had gone out somewhere leaving my roommate's very cute friend visting from out-of-town alone in the apartment. Later in the early evening I returned and the cute friend burst out of my roommate's room and exclaimed, "I've been locked in here all afternoon!"
"Locked in?", I answered incredulously.
"I couldn't get the door to open. The knob just kept on turning."
I had noticed the knob on the front door being a little slippery lately but didn't think it would result in anything this horrific. Without another word the cute friend left the apartment, not wanting to waste this sudden moment of freedom. I watched the door close and then sat down and watched TV.

Later that evening I decided that instead of making dinner I would go get takeout. I put on shoes, tried the door and sure enough, it just kept turning. And turning. It seemed like it would drop off onto the floor and I know I didn't want that to happen. So I stopped turning. And then resumed the turning only to yield the same result. Now, I too was trapped. If only I had listened to the cute girl - maybe I wouldn't be in this jam!
"Fuck!"
I was at a loss. Clearly I couldn't blow this off and needed to do something. So I called my neighbor Jon. A friend from my days in DC I knew Jon would surely help me after he stopped laughing. Unless he was high, which was likely. I called anyway. I was right about the laughter but after it became clear that I was serious he too became annoyed and started to give me a hard time about it. He had a laundry list of reasons why he shouldn't get up off his couch and I became annoyed with him. Finally, he said, "Look, if you don't stop being obnoxious I won't come over and let you out."
Perfect. Now I was the bad guy. Clearly I needed friends who were less high maintenance. So I apologized and waited since he basically had me over a barrel.

About 20 minutes later my buzzer went off and it was Jon. I heard him shuffling up the stairs and without knocking said "Slide your key under the door and I'll open it."

I did as instructed and the anticipation was almost overwhelming. I had been officially locked in for no more than an hour and I felt like a caged animal finally being liberated from his cage. The door swung open and there was Jon, unkempt as usual in a cheesy T-Shirt, a pair of soccer shorts and Tevas. "There you go." he said with a little smile. Returning the key to me he continued with " Get the door fixed. Now I'm going back home. Seeya."
"Thanks", I responded and stared at the doorjamb as if I had some kind of mechanical ability.
I went out and got dinner hoping the door would fix itself but obviously this would not be so. When my roommate and his cute friend returned home they were of no help either. The next morning trying to leave for work the door had become an impenetrable barricade. At this point I was frusted and decided to direct my frustration at the landlord. Jo & Wo Realty, horrible slumlords of the Upper East Side. Wo (or was it Jo) told me I needed to call the Super and he would talk me out of this. Milton the Super answered my exasperation with an equally flabergasted tone "Look, do you have a screwdriver?"
"Yes."
"Well, get it!"
"Wedge it between the door and the frame and then take a sharp edged blade like a kitchenknife and use the knife to slide the lock out."
I followed his advice and the door opened. "Please get somebody over here to fix this today", I implored.
As another helpless renter with no home maintenance skills I had never felt more useless.