In a couple of months it will be my three year anniversary of being a New Yorker! To celebrate, here’s a recounting of the strangest, most unsettling, unexpected, and just plain befuddling moments I’ve personally experienced since being here.
Asian lady who walked up to me and began hand-feeding me a plum on the 7 train.
A girl I walked past at Bryant Park, who was wearing those tight black spandex pants and hip-thrusting away. No music, no one dancing with her, just her going at it like she had a disease and the cure was pelvic thrusts.
Strange man who ran up to me one day and hollared at the top of his lungs, “YOU’RE SO HOT! YOU’RE SO FUCKING HOT!” I screamed like a wussy and fled.
Elderly man roller-blading down the street in short-shorts, carrying a hockey stick.
Man who approached a group of Chinese tourists on the subway, saying “Konichiwa! Koneeeecheewaaah.” Finally one of them replied, “We are Chinese.” He then took out a dollar bill and waved it in her face, saying, “You want a man with money, girl, you want a man with money?” and asking them if they knew who 50 Cent was. “Girl, I’m 15 Cent!”
The guy who approached me and a group of my lady friends, hopefully showing us his “Free Massages” sign. “Don’t make eye contact! Don’t make eye contact!”
Sitting with my then-boyfriend at a club, feeling someone staring a hole through my skull. I turn to find another couple who’re sitting at a bar staring right at us. My then-BF turns to stare back. “What do you think they want?” I ask. “Maybe they wanna fight. Hey, you wanna go? Let’s go.” They continue staring, but not in a threatening manner. “Maybe they’re swingers,” my then-BF suggests. “Euuugh!”
I’ll make a rough estimate that I’ve spent 500 hours in NYC, mostly in Manhattan. A topless women in freezing weather, con men, people screaming at nothing, people attempting to sell me drugs, women, and stolen goods, a cab driver who pulled over, jumped out of the cab and ran off without saying a word, a man banging his head against a brick wall, an old woman insisting I was Abraham until I ran away. The list goes on. And except as a small child, I never even rode the subway.
The oddest thing I ever saw when growing up in NYC was Woody Allen. He was walking near the Met with Soon-Yi. As he walked by you could hear people telling each other “Oh my god? Was that Woody Allen? Yes, it’s Woody Allen! OH MY GOD I JUST SAW WOODY ALLEN!”
My most unforgettable experience as a NYC tourist was coming across a man lying inert on the sidewalk. He may have been dead. Everyone stepped over or around him without a second glance. My NYC native friend insisted that I not get involved. “It will just make things worse.”
And then there was the guy on the Jersey shore mooning the tour boat.
I once went with a friend who wanted to buy a Louis Vitton ripoff purse. Somehow she knew where the vendor would be and at what time. And there he was, slightly off Broadway, right on schedule.
Has anyone seen the squirrel man down close to the ferries to the Statue of Liberty? A skinny old Chinese-looking man sitting on a bench letting squirrels climb over him. When we returned to Bangkok, I mentioned this to an acquaintance here who is a former Manhattan resident, and he remembered the guy.
Okay, just so New York doesn’t get all cocky, we’ve got plenty of weird stuff here in Wisconsin. Why, in my fifty years here, I’ve seen:
[ul]
[li]A guy wearing a suit and tie with sneakers. I know, hey?[/li]
[li]This dude that plays guitar with the case open in front of him, and sometimes he isn’t even playing, just chatting, and people still drop change in the case.[/li]
[li]A lady with a Bachmann/Palin 2012 shirt. I didn’t know whether to sneer at her or propose.[/li]
[li]A coffee shop where college students hang out, and every single one was wearing something plaid. Across the street at a Starbuck’s, 17 of 18 customers were in black.[/li]
[li]A high school kid with a Mr. Bubble t-shirt on. I mean, hijinks were ensuing, the kid wasn’t even alive when those commercials were on.[/li][/ul]
I could go on, but I think I’ll save it (hey, for a coffeetable book…!)
I lived in NYC in '89-'90. I’m from Mississippi so it was so totally different for me.
On the first day we arrived we were driving around, stopped at a red light, looked to my right and an old woman pulled out the waist band of her pants, stuck a big paper cup in her pants and I’m guessing she was peeing in the cup? Of course, the streets were very crowded, people walking around her but no one even looked at her. Except us! :eek:
A few months later, We were walking down to the subway and a dirty guy wearing a Snapple t-shirt whips out his peepee and starts peeing on the subway wall. When he noticed us walking by he started yelling “Stop looking at me, bitch!” That was 23 yrs ago and to this day, every time I see anything Snapple related, I flash back to that moment, to that nasty guy pissing on the subway wall. Lovely… I don’t like Snapple…Nope…
We lived in a very nice, gated condo complex. Lucky for me, nice thick walls AND floors. A young unmarried couple lived below us, lots of money, the girlfriend said boyfriend’s father was mob connected. :eek: I was sleeping on the couch one night, woke up to sirens screaming. Some “friends” came for a visit downstairs, started fighting in the condo below me, then they took it out to the parking lot. I found out later that day that Bullets were fired into the ceiling right where I was sleeping on the couch! Guns with silencers. I never heard a thing until the sirens woke me. As I stated before, LUCKY for me, very thick floors or I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. Good times!
So true. I have a list of my own, and that’s from a grand total of eight hours I spent in Manhattan once.