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A Trip to New York

 I recently took some midwesterners into Manhattan, and I was amazed once again by this strange city. A movie ticket is now basically twenty dollars, and it's likely there will just be a large hole in the screen--a hole! 


And the hole will not inspire any kind of special announcement; no one will step forward and say, "Hey, we're sorry about that big hole." It's just part of the local color.

Across the street, you can stop by a seedy kind of closet, stocked with NYC Christmas ornaments and bobble-headed plastic statues of Donald Trump. And these statues are available even at 2 AM. The closet never seems to close.

By contrast, a bathroom is like a unicorn. "I need to pee," says one of my guests, and I say, "You actually can't do that, here, in this city. It's basically impossible. The bathroom problem is such a mess, it has inspired full-length episodes of call-in programs on NPR. One thing you could do is claim you're pregnant and having an emergency, and then you rush past the host or hostess at the front of a restaurant. I learned this from Brian Lehrer, but you are ten years old, and the pregnancy thing might not work, in your case....."

Later, I stand behind a family who is clearly trying to fake their way toward a free admission at the 9/11 museum. "I have the thing on my phone! It's your scanner! Your scanner is the issue!" I'm sort of happy that my guests are witnessing this exchange--because the fierce argument seems to put a spotlight on one more important feature of New York.

"You pay a lot of money to be here," I whisper to my youngest friend. "You live in a tiny box, and maybe your heat won't work. It's an option to consider, as you start to think about your early twenties....."

I smile; I ponder whether or not it's time for me to invest in a little bobble-head....
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