well, children, gather round.
you may not have been aware, but there was a massive snowstorm this weekend, which means that I ate everything in my apartment. which means that if I did not want to empty my bank account on groceries, I had to trek over to manhattan to go to trader joe’s.
I am an extremely small woman, so transporting two super heavy bags of groceries on a subway to brooklyn isn’t going to be fun on a good day, never mind when the entire car is soaked and it’s rush hour so there’s nowhere to sit. I end up by a pole sort of straddling my two bags, and just as the door’s about to close a cop and a very drunk man come in and stand next to me. not exactly sure how that conversation goes but I guess either the drunk guy convinces the cop he’s fine or the cop just can’t be bothered, but he gets off at the next stop. doors close. drunk guy starts laughing, pulls out a handle of skyy, swigs some then puts it back in his pocket.
cue two stops later, a super out-of-it homeless veteran gets on, starts telling his story and asking for money. I’m like, very aware at this point of the massive bags of groceries between my legs. I generally don’t give money to people on the streets but I try to do right, so I’m like, okay if he asks I’ll give him my apples. before he can get to me, drunk guy goes over to him and they start having the loudest, most unintelligible conversation, but then they start looking over to me.
(and there’s really no mistake it’s me they’re looking at - everyone else has cleared out of that section thanks to drunk guy but I’m pretty much planted there with my bags.)
drunk guy walks over. asks if I can spare any food for him. I’m like, “bro, there’s a handle of top shelf vodka in your pocket.” now I realise this man could very well have been homeless as well and that addiction goes a lot deeper than I can imagine, but he’s also wearing a very nice watch and has a trendy haircut and the evidence isn’t really stacking up so well for him.
he sort of stumbles back to the homeless guy, they chat, and this next part kind of happens very quickly. they rush me. literally all I can think is, “fuck.” and then, out of fucking nowhere, this massive dude’s standing in between me and them, arms akimbo like goddamn superman. drunk and homeless stop, slip a little, and try to play it off like nothing happened.
mr superman meanwhile turns out to be gorgeous, french, carried my heavy-ass bags for me all the way out of the subway, down three blocks of snowdrifts, up five floors, and turns out to be my next-door neighbour.
I’ll send out our wedding invitations in a few weeks.
prguitarman
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
ellievsbear
