Subway Suffering

If you've lived in NYC for a while you know...you just KNOW when someone is going to try to cut in front of you to get on the stairs so they can exit just a second ahead of you. You know the way they position their bodies and how they stand just so if you hesitate for a second they can swoop in and take that small space that you've somehow made available to them.

This happened to me this morning. Of course it happens every morning but today we have an exception. As I'm heading to the escalator's fast lane (the left side for the uninitiated), this woman was clearly trying to cut in ahead of me. Deciding that I didn't want to physically harm the woman by blowing by her at top speed so I paused and motioned for her to move in ahead of me. We'll call this woman Pink Lady because or the color of her raincoat and not because she resembled a mid-70s female Japanese singing duo who had a horrible variety show in the US.

Pink Lady: Thank you.

646Guy: You were going to do it either way.

Pink Lady: No I wasn't. Did you think I was being rude. I wasn't being rude. Maybe you haven't had your morning coffee.

646Guy: Maybe you need to let me enjoy the remainder of my commute to work in peace.

Of course, that's where it should have ended. I say should have because after this point I didn't say another word. It was the lovely black woman behind me who took up my cause on her own accord. We'll call this woman Sassy McSasserson because if there was ever a sassy black woman it was her...

Sassy: TOLD YOU!

Pink Lady: What?

Sassy: He told you!

Pink Lady: I wasn't being rude...

Sassy: Lady, you know what it looks like when people are going to cut in front of you on the stairs and I know what it looks like when people are going to do it to you and you know damn well you were doing it so stop giving us the holier-than-thou-my-shit-don't-stink routine because it ain't gonna work.

By this point we were at the top of the escalator and Pink Lady was as pink as her raincoat and I was grinning like an idiot because, granted, I didn't get the peace that I had requested, but I did get to hear Pink Lady get shut down and rather effectively.

And that, my folks, helped make my morning...