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elleng

(130,151 posts)
Mon Jul 5, 2021, 01:34 PM Jul 2021

METROPOLITAN DIARY

‘How Much?’
Dear Diary:

I stepped off a bus on Fifth Avenue in Midtown on a steamy afternoon. My first stop was a nearby street vendor for a cold drink. I asked for a seltzer.

“How much?” I said. I expected to hear $2 or $3, so I was somewhat surprised when he said $5.

I handed him a $5 bill.

“I am not a tourist,” I said. “I live here.”

Flashing a big smile, he handed me back a single.

A modest victory, maybe, but it made my day.

— Art Schaffer

((Didn't it used to be called A Two Cents Plain???))


Kind Eyes
Dear Diary:

One year, after decorating my Christmas tree, I noticed that it was crooked and about to fall over. I leaned it up against the wall until I could run out in the morning to get a larger stand.

It was raining when I woke up. I put on a hat and ran to the nearest tree lot, at Spring Street and Lafayette. I was wearing the clothes I’d slept in and I hadn’t brushed my teeth.

“Excuse me,” I asked the man there. He was sitting inside a little booth that was covered with twinkling lights and reading a book. “Do you sell tree stands?”

The eyes that looked back at me were the kindest I had ever seen.

I had never asked anyone out before. I was terrified to do it and terrified not to. The thought of walking past those trees every day and not knowing more about this impossibly handsome man was unbearable.

After returning home and getting my tree straightened out, I put on clothes that were not pajamas and marched down to the coffee shop. I bought a hot chocolate and wrote my number on the cup.

I must have walked around the block five times before I got the guts to walk back up to him. An hour later my phone rang. It was Jose.

He thanked me for having the courage to come back and asked if I’d like to go with him to see the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting.

Afterward, we told each other our life stories over a bottle of wine at a bar at Grand Central. I must have been on the nice list that year.

— Stephanie Najor

Last Car
Dear Diary:

I parked my car at an outdoor lot near Madison Square Garden while my friend and I went to the Rangers game. After the game, we walked to Virgil’s and spent some time catching up over a leisurely barbecue dinner.

On the way back to the car, I got a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach when the parking lot came into view. From a distance, it appeared that my car was the only one left in the lot.

My uneasy feeling was soon justified. When I left the car there earlier in the evening, I had somehow failed to notice the sign clearly stating that the lot closed at 11 p.m.

As my friend and I stood helplessly at the locked gate pondering our stupidity and predicament, I saw a piece of paper taped to the fence and flapping in the wind. It was a handwritten note.

“I’m in the Irish pub around the corner,” it said. “Meet me there.”

— Vincent Bucci

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/04/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html

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