“Ew, mommy that’s gross”
I just moved to New York a few months ago, and given the fact that I grew up in the suburbs I feel like I don’t quite fit in yet. However, two events have occurred that made my friend declare “you are a real New Yorker now”. Here is, apparently, what it takes to become a New Yorker.
I work with a child, and though I have not gotten sick yet he has. One day as I was taking him to the doctor something hit me. I hadn’t been feeling well since lunch, but all of a sudden I started to feel dizzy, the back of my neck felt scorching hot and I started to sweat. I knew this feeling, I had to vomit, and fast. I quickly scanned for trashcans along the street. One block up. Got it. Focus, just don’t throw up yet. I get to the trashcan, lock the stroller, grip and throw. There is my lunch, staring at me atop a heap of trash. In the midst of all this a small girl along with her mother crossing the street at which point I hear the girl say in the most disgusted tone “EW! Mommy that’s gross”. Kid, I couldn’t agree more.
The second event was far more traumatizing, I lost my cell phone in a car service vehicle. I was with a friend, and she tried calling it multiple times and it just went right to voice mail. We called the car service, the guy came back. We checked in between the seats, under the carpets, in the trunk, everywhere. When we called the car service to get a ride back they said they had found the phone, all I had to do was pick it up. The driver had apparently taken it in for a detail cleaning and they found the phone in his car, and the woman who answered our call for the car recognized my friend’s number from my phone. We stopped by the station, picked up my phone and she said “you are a real New Yorker now. Congratulations”. Only in New York does it take barfing into a trashcan and losing your phone to fit in.
