Coffee, Cash and Claustrophobia.

Aaah, the three C's.  Totally common.

Well, the first C that I'll write about isn't that interesting or crazy, but reminded me of the past "quirk" entry that I wrote.  I figured that while I was on the topic...

Claustrophobia
Last night, the hubs and I boarded our train toward the homestead when a man took a seat across the aisle from us.  He was sitting in the seat closest to the aisle of a 3-seater...meaning the window seat and middle seat were empty.  As the train filled up, another young man approached, asking to sit next to..."our neighbor" let's call him.  Upon this request, our neighbor stood up and made room for the young fellow to come on in, but he stalled.   Young fellow then said, "Oh, I'm actually getting off at Secaucus."  Meaning: he would be leaving at the first stop.  He wanted the aisle seat.

Our neighbor then said with a slightly uncomfortable smile, "I'm claustrophic, but I'll get up for you, no problem."

Young fellow did not like this.  He proceeded to make some breathy horse noise and then walked on down the aisle to a different seat while the next young fellow smiled at our neighbor and happily took the open window seat.  

So, who is weirder?  The claustrophic neighbor who couldn't sit by the window for 5 minutes OR the guy who refused a perfectly empty window seat with a willing-to-stand-up-at-your-stop aisle guy?

My vote goes to young fellow. But then again...maybe he had some weird issue too...hmmm.

Cash
Typically, I don't give money to homeless or needy people in NYC.  When I was younger (high school & college aged), I almost ALWAYS dug deep into my pockets for change to share or offered up half of my deli sandwich to the guy slouched against the Starbucks with a sign that read, "HELP ME GET BACK HOME."  I did this at the time because I merely didn't know what an alcoholic crackhead was and I didn't know that my money was most likely going towards a very depressing cause. 

However, with each passing year of working here, I find that not only do I not sympathetically share my dolla-bills or food any longer, I barely even watch my feet enough to avoid stepping on these folks. They say that New York will make you a hard person and normally I disagree.  But today, I kind of get it.

On my way to the Uptown 6 train, I saw a man running his card through the subway machine repeatedly while shaking his head.  I slid mine on the machine next to his and went through the gate, but kept checking back at him.  How frustrating is it when your card doesn't work?!  Especially if you have some place to be.  As I watched, person after person passed the man without a second glance and within minutes the train was approaching.  There was no subway teller at this station so I knew stranger-man would have to buy another card if his wouldn't start to magically work.  And what if he couldn't afford that?  I thought to myself, "If nobody else lets him in, I'm going to give him a swipe."  I mean, it's only 2 bucks, but if he steals my card then it's 20...and that would be annoying.

The train screeched to a halt and the man was still stranded on the other side of the turnstile with handfuls of people whizzing past him. Now was my chance.  I ran over, "Sir! You can use my card for a swipe!" 

He didn't understand me, so I called out to him again, waving my card in his face like a lunatic while also silently cursing myself for waiting until the train was actually here to help stranger-man out.  Finally, he noticed that I wasn't trying to kill him and took my card before shakily giving it a swipe. It didn't work.  He motioned to hand it back to me, but I assured him that it would work and on the next swipe it did.  VICTORY! 

With my card back in my hands, the two of us rushed onto the train and as I sat down he approached me sounding completely exasperated, "I just put ten dollars on this card this morning. I don't understand what went wrong with it or how to fix it. Guess I'll have to ask someone on my way home from work tonight.  Thank you, again." 

And it felt good. I realize that I don't owe anyone anything, but that doesn't mean I can't keep my eyes peeled for opportunities or ways to make other people have a better day.  Plus, it's nice.  And nice matters.

Coffee
This morning, the hubs and I went for a pre-work Fika outing and got another delicious cup o' heaven.  I'm really loving this poorly photographed tradition we have going on here.

Happy rainy Thursday!
xoxo
L