The Arts Guy, Volume 1

Lauren asked if I wanted to blog this week, so i took her up on her offer.

The New York Blahs

I love New York City. It is the best place to live in the world. However, when things go wrong in NYC it becomes pure Hell.

So, as Lauren has stated, I work for Broadway general managers (similar to a producer) in Times Square, the busiest, most annoying place in the United States…unless you are visiting, then it is great. Side note, you can tell who lives in NYC when walking through Times Square. Anyone who is walking extremely fast, weaving in and out of the masses of people, muttering obscenities under his/her breath, is living in NYC, the rest of the people are tourists. Anyways, one of my bosses is moving to North Carolina in a week and he needed stuff to pack up his office belongings in. So being the bottom of the totem pole, I am sent to Staples to pick up a 24x20 20 box, a 20x18x18 box, a 30” tall packing tube, and 175 feet of bubble wrap. Despite Staples being 7 NYC blocks away, this shouldn’t have been a problem. But, the boxes, when not put together, are the size of me, and they only come in packs of 3. The tubes come in a double pack. The bubble tape is fine. I can barely carry the stuff. When I finally make it to a register, the cashier decides to say she is closed and makes me walk up the stairs with all of this stuff to the registers up there. Finally, an angry employee rings me up, and I head my way back to work.

As I start walking, the binding of one set of boxes breaks. So I take my fingers and wedge them in between what will become the flaps of the boxes. I’m caring the other set of boxes in my fingertips of the other hand. The tubes are under my chin. And I’m carrying the bag of bubble tape by my pinky. I make it two blocks with multiple stops to rearrange and realize there is no way I can carry this back the next five blocks. So I walk in to the middle of the street and try to hail a cab while still holding all of the packaging supplies for my boss. No cab driver wants to deal with me. 5 in-service cabs pass right by me before I get picked up by a very nice out-of-service cab driver who must feel very sorry for me. He gets me to my location, which is right off of Broadway. This is an extremely busy street, packed with cars and thousands of pedestrians on the sidewalk. I’m trying to unload everything from the cab as quickly as I can. It’s not working. Tubes are rolling in the middle of the street. Boxes falling every which way. I’m a mess. And not one of the thousands of people helped me out to carry something to my destination, let alone just helping me out of the middle of the street. I’m about to get hit by cars, and want to yell at someone to give me a hand, and cry. Eventually I make it back to work. The boxes are partially damaged, but my boss is very appreciative! Probably because he just avoided an hour of Hell.

Then, after work, I’m dying to get back home. I get down to the subway. It’s packed. I’m not getting on until 2 subs arrive at the very least. So I decide to walk the 60 blocks home. As I said before, NYC is the best place in the world. And a 60-block walk may sound terrible, but it is the best thing I do for myself in a long time, until I get to block 55 out of 60. I’m walking under scaffolding on the side of a building that was under repair. And there must be a pigeon up there somewhere, because a huge thing of poop hits my shoulder, splashes on my neck and runs all the way down my arm! Not only am I gagging as I walk home, I have to pass by tons of people sitting outside eating their dinners at fancy restaurants.

This is one of the days, in the best city in the world, where the Devil decided to surface and wreak havoc on us natives. Well at least this native.
-Scott Witebsky (AKA- The Arts Guy)