1:07 p.m.: And it’s already been 10 minutes—I’m late for my pedicure—and I’m just standing inside the bank cubicle along with everybody else and we’re all so annoyed and you know what? We don’t care if you know that we’re pissed off, either, so we tap our feet and we sigh just enough so you can hear how irritated we are and we peek out of the line to look back at you like you’re a fuckin’ idiot, I mean really this Is New York and everybody is impatient, and that’s what you get when you’re the asshole who takes forever at the ATM machine, I mean maybe you don’t remember your pass code or maybe your card is expired but, whatever, I don’t really care—I want what everybody else waiting on this line wants: get to the machine, pull out my denomination of $20, $40, or $100 dollars and get on with the rest of my day because I…
1:25 p.m.: Finally I’m out the bank and once freed I pop down into the subway and oh my fuck it’s hot down here, it’s like so hot I can barely breathe I mean like forget sweating and being generally uncomfortable and everything—this is different; I feel faint, like I’m going to pass out right here, like my clothes are melting off, like I’m going to fall down on the subway tracks, which has always been one of my biggest New York City fears anyway—falling down the subway platform on accident, I mean when you live here you hear about that happening all the time, and I even remember some time ago there was this dude going around pushing random people down when the train came which is uber scary so that’s why I started standing way back when the trains come to protect my life.
1:40 p.m.: So the train pulls up and I’m back a full five feet and it’s hot down here and I can’t breathe so I’m looking forward to climbing in the train because I know it’ll be ice cold inside but when I get in it’s actually the same temperature—fuck!—and I think to myself, okay, just get a seat by the window and catch as much of the breeze as you can, so I see this seat, and almost immediately this fat guy swoops in and I’m like, really? I was so obviously about to dive into that chair, fat dude, but I’m too hot to argue so I give him a mean look and continue to choke on the stale air.
1:45 p.m.: W. 4th St., 14th St. I’m standing in this heat box and there’s a Very Important Looking Woman who just got on and she can’t wait to pull out her computer—it’s not even an iPad or a Kindle, it’s a full-on laptop—so of course I stare at her and immediately start thinking about what this lady could possibly be doing that’s so All Important that she can’t hold off a few minutes until she gets to where she’s going and it really annoys me, you know?
1:55 p.m.: Exit train. Power walk to exit. Swim through turnstile. Climb up stairs. Avoid getting face too near anybody’s ass. Clasp for air at the top.
1:57 p.m.: There are these tourists standing there, maybe eight or 20 of them, and they’re just standing, chilling, unphased that Everybody Has Somewhere To Be, so there they go, with their huge maps and their fanny packs and their visors, and they’re speaking in some foreign tongue I can’t locate, and they’re pointing, pointing, pointing, and what I really want to do is scream WHEREVER YOU’RE GOING IT’S NOT AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRWELL! But then I’m like, okay, that wouldn’t be too nice, wouldn’t make their New York City day, so I just roll my eyes and huff past or maybe I bump them a little and I think they got the hint.
1:59 p.m.: The song playing on my iPod is “Robot Rock” by Daft Punk. Where will I live in L.A.? Wow, that guy is really hot, wonder how hung he is.
2:00 p.m.: I’m still really late to my pedicure and it was a super difficult appointment to get and it’ll so take me three months to get on their books again so I’m hoofing it, flying past everybody, dodging people like a go-cart.
2:02 p.m.: And that’s when I see a girl in a yellow and blue shirt with a clipboard, just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk so I think—ugh—and that’s when I try to deflect her by pulling out my iPhone, trying to look really busy because nothing annoys me more than these people who stand on the street and are all, Hey, Let Me Be Your Friend So I Can Sell You This Fabulous Thing I Have, but don’t get me wrong—it doesn’t bother me that they’re like on the street or whatever, I mean this is AMERICA and we are free, sometimes, but I just get irritated when they try to stop me and especially when they get really ballsy and actually walk with me because I, Madison Moore, should Save the Planet—I mean, it’s not that I’m not into like planets or anything, I just have stuff to do you know? And now is the worst time to try to put me on pause, so before the blue and yellow clipboarded chick opens her mouth at me I’m all, Sorry!, and keep go-carting past.
See, the key is not to slow down because once you do that then they’ve got you trapped and you’re theirs for at least the next 60 seconds and by then you’re bound to sign up for something.
