Category Archives: NYC

NYC, Parental Guidance

Why You Should Never Buy Pricey Toys for Your Children

There’s one block of Flushing Avenue, right around Bedford, that’s completely torn up. And it’s been completely torn up since I started taking the bus to work.

The street is literally ripped open, with a huge, gaping hole cordoned off by an rickety wooden fence. You can see down inside, where months of rainwater have accumulated, leaving a lime green, radioactive scummy pond. Enormous segments of concrete sewer pipe lay on the sidewalk. They once had screens on their open ends that looked kinda like cheesecloth, but those were weathered away long ago, and their remnants flap in the breeze.

None of this crap has moved in at least 6 months. I don’t know who’s to blame: the city, or whatever slumlord started repairs and never finished them. But because of it, my bus gets trapped on this block every morning, thus making my commute far longer than it need be.

So this morning, while I’m stuck at this point, I see some Hasidic kids playing on the sidewalk. They’re taking cardboard box from the kosher grocery store across the street, and they’re trying to bale a puddle of dirty rainwater with it. They range in age from 4 to 8, and they look like they’re having the time of their lives.

I see this is in my own home. My daughter will play with a 10 cent hair scrunchie, or a paper towel roll, and have as much fun as she does playing with expensive Christmas presents. If not more.

So my parental advice is, exploit this childhood window while you can. Forget the Baby Einstein nonsense and get the kid an empty pallet of tissue boxes from behind the local Duane Reade. The kid won’t care, and you won’t have to cajole them to play with that hand-crafted wooden xylophone you wasted 30 dollars on.

NYC

Dress for the Scam You Want, Not the Scam You’re Running

m&ms.jpgI remember my first encounter with M&M kids. This was just post college, would’ve been around 1999/2000. I was on Broadway in the upper 90s, wandering around on my lunch break, when I was accosted by a couple of pre-teens who said they were selling candy for their basketball team. I gave them a buck and walked away with some Peanut M&Ms I had no intention of eating.

I also remember that, in the exact second the kids were out of earshot, I was immediately counter-accosted by some VERY CONCERNED woman who said to me, “You don’t REALLY think that money’s going to a basketball team, DO YOU?!” I shrugged and told her, “If it’s not, there are worse scams.”

To this day, I have no doubt that few–if any–of the kids who sell candy in this city do so for actual charities. But again, if it’s a scam, to what end? My only theory is that it rids Hershey of every last horrible pack of Peanut M&Ms, since that’s the only brand these kids ever have. And because Peanut M&Ms are an abomination.

However, I think this scam–if that is, indeed what it is–has run its course. Because the kids doing it have gotten progressively younger over the years. That suggests to me the real scam is some older scammer convincing naive types that The M&M Job still works.

But I got the real evidence of its demise last night. As I rode the M train home, I heard a kid make his pitch through my iPod headphones. “Scuse me, ladies and gentlemen, sorry to disturb your conversations…” I couldn’t see him from my vantage point–I sure wasn’t gonna try and make eye contact–but he sounded a little older than the usual M&M kid.

Shortly thereafter, my fellow subway riders cleared a path for him. I found this odd, because people usually ignore the M&M Kids. Plus, this car was pretty packed. But I found out in seconds why they cleared the way for him: He reeked of weed. This guy didn’t look nearly as high as the Stoned Man I saw at Toys R Us last December, but he smelled much, much worse.

Any dedicated scammer knows that a scam can only succeed when the scammer appears sincere and respectable. You don’t want the public at large to suspect you’re using their money for personal gain or nefarious purposes. Or to go roll up a fatty and laugh your ass off to Friday.

Once a scam has passed hands from skilled actors to young kids to degenerates, the scam is dead. I expect The M&M Kids to completely disappear from the city by year’s end. And it’s all thanks to the Cheech and Chong enthusiast I saw on the M train last night. Thanks, mysterious stranger!

NYC

Safety Announcements, MTA Style

Moments after I boarded the bus this morning, the driver picked up the intercom to make this announcement.

“HEY! There’s a fire at Flushing and [garbled]. We gonna be rerouted down Metroplitan. You need to get off somewhere along the rerouted route, YOU LET ME KNOW, OKAY?! Don’t be yellin and screamin at me!”

Five blocks later, she made the same announcement, almost verbatim. Not a single head moved, either time.

I like the fact that the primary goal of her announcement was not to give us a heads-up that the bus was being rerouted, or that THERE’S A FIRE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, but to not hassle her because of either of these facts. And that no one seemed to notice or care anyway.

♪ It’s a hell of town… ♪