After work the other day, I was heading to my boyfriend's apartment and exited the train at Grand Central. There was a throng of people gathered at the staircase on the platform, being inconsiderate to each other as usual. A man with a guitar case had been waiting by the stairs for someone to let him up for as long as I'd been waiting patiently toward the back of the mass, so when it was my turn to step onto the first stair, I held back for a second and motioned for him to go ahead. He smiled and thanked me, and I was left feeling like the greatest American hero, as my boyfriend says.
Then, on my way up the staircase from the station to the street, a woman was coming down on the wrong side. I find that sort of thing ridiculous in normal polite society, but in a city where we're all two centimeters from colliding with one another, it's totally inexcusable. I was going to give her the what-for, but then I thought, "Hey, it's raining, and if I'm nice to the guitar guy AND the wrong-side lady, my karma will be off the chart." Not that I believe in that sort of thing.
But as soon as I was through congratulating myself on being a true humanitarian, the woman thrust her Strawberry shopping bags in front of her, lifted her chin, and said haughtily, "Clear the way! Clear the way!"
She's lucky she didn't say it ten seconds earlier, because you can bet I would've planted myself right in front of her until the smell of the halal cart outside the station became too tempting around nightfall, but as she was right beside me by that point, I could only say, "You are a [expletive deleted]!", but she kept on walking down the stairs, and people kept on moving out of the way for her.
Funny that the only time New Yorkers are nice, it's for people who don't deserve it.
– Katie Ett, unapologeticallymundane.com
More People You Love to Hate:
• The single-seat grabber
• The nonsensical screamer
• The groper
Photo by: moriza
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