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A Trip to New York

 I know I'm a crabby old man because I recently tried to use the New York City subway.

 

Idina Menzel really likes New York City. She likes it so much, she just recorded a version of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind." But maybe it's easy to enjoy Manhattan if you're Idina Menzel, and you have two trillion dollars.

 

I have always hated the subway, but a return Sunday visit reminded me just how strong my aversion is. Lengthy waits, bizarre reroutings, unintelligible (still unintelligible!) announcements over the intercom. Dipshits with face masks dangling off their necks, and the one asshole who feels entitled to blast his music all through the train car.

 

I feel so old, I'm already dreading the "show your iPhone" moment when I return in a few weeks--to a Broadway theater. The iPhone ticket is apparently convenient--but convenient for whom? And why am I paying a "service fee" when I am the one downloading an app, linking an email to an app, packing a charger so that I'll have a functional screen, and then sifting through the forty unsolicited promotional emails ("See Shawn Mendes Live!") to find the one relevant piece of news from "SeatGeek," the one thing that might (or might not?) be my ticket, the thing I'll need to wave at an angry underpaid man in a chaotic line a few weeks from now.......

 

I truly hate all of this.

 

I will be packing Klonopin.
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