Saturday, August 15, 2009

Tales of Brooklyn Wooing: Gyro King

i know this is something i've pondered before, but i really do wonder about certain dudes' methods of trying to pick someone up. if you need me to get into specifics, i did so here. catch up if you need to and come back to me.

i went into my fave kensington 24 hr gyro place since i worked late today and had nothing defrosted to cook. as soon as i walk in, a male customer lets out an excited yell. i figure he was as thrilled as i was about the gyros. i walk up to the counter and greet the two friendly workers that are always there (any day, any hour...when do they sleep!?) the one worker that i normally converse with was all "the usual?" and i was all 'Oh Roger*, you know me so well'. (Note: his name isn't roger and really i just said "yes"). then some guy who i had heard yelling in the bathroom comes lumbering out. the first yelling guy scurries up to him, says something to him and gestures to me, to which the lumberer responds with "WHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! how are YOU doing?!" so now i'm uncomfortable because two random dudes are screaming at the sight of me. between the two of them, they are saying random things about how good i look blah blah blah, at which point my dear friend, roger** (**again, not his name) asks them to stop because i am a very good customer. i kind of fell in love with roger for defending my honor here. then i kind of just ignore this guy and watch the other worker put together my gyro. Lumberer responds to this as "man, why you gotta do that? it's not like the ghetto. it's not like i was all 'yo ma, looking good baby.'

ok, seriously? number one - seriously? number two - i don't know where this kid lives, but ghetto or no, anywhere i go in the city there is a good chance someone will say "yo ma, looking good baby" and third...wouldn't you say screaming "WHOOOOOOOOO!!!! how are YOU doing?!" is pretty equivalent to this "ghetto" example? i mean, seriously. then this lumberer is still rambling on about this and is finally like 'i'm just a guy, wanting to say hi, see how you're doing. i may be a little drunk, but...' at this point i was like 'yes, i can tell you are drunk.' i paid for my sandwich, and in my haste to grab my free soda ($4.00 meal deal!) and get the eff outta there i FORGOT to tip roger!! i ALWAYS tip him, and out of all the times to forget to tip him, it had to be the time that he was my hero! i considered going back to give him the tip, but i was worried the two drunkos would take that as a sign that i wanted to see them again.

the sad thing is that i bet mr. lumberer gets more action than i do. i guess i'm just picky.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

the girl with the face

the other day, i was asking a fellow boxing class member about the whereabouts of a third class member. i asked for the third by name, and the girl i was asking had a confused look on her face and asked who i was talking about. i started to say something descriptive, when the girl i was conversing with cut in with "oh! is she the one with the..." and then made a general hand gesture around her face. my response was "yes, her", even though i don't really know what she meant by that.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

protect the eyes!!

Nothing like shards of glass flying towards your face to let you know you're back in new york. I was headed to my local Vietnamese sandwich place for some delicious lunch and refreshing lychee boba tea when I was nearly split into chunks by flying pieces of a broken snapple bottle. Someone had descended the stairs into the subway and for some reason tossed this already shattered bottle back up the stairs with excessive force. I had been just turning the corner approaching this stairway (the sandwich place is just past the subway entrance) when I was greeted with these flying shards. There was no warning, just near death/blindness. Gotta love NYC.