east village idiot

I’ve always been a little bothered by what I read in the New York Times’ weekly Metropolitan Diary column. In this column, published each Monday in the Metro section, New Yorkers write in to share their stories of “uniquely New York” situations. It has pretty much become irrelevant in the era of blogs and Overheard in New York. I’ve called bullshit a couple times before, and others have been perpetrators of the bullshit themselves. So, starting this week, the Metropolitan Diary will take some time to respond on this blog to those New Yorkers who have addressed it. And apologies to Gabe, who does a much better job with his little mockery of a Times feature, but you know what? He gets paid for it. I don’t. You get what you pay for, so ‘eff him.

DEAR DIARY: 

I hardly ever run to catch a train; there will always be another. And accidents happen. One Friday afternoon, however, I ran down the stairs in the 14th Street station in order to catch an express train going uptown.

As I was running into the train, someone must have stepped on my foot, and next thing I knew, I was in the train, minus one flip-flop.

[This portion of the letter has been omitted, since it merely draws the story out for far too long in a desperate attempt for the author to prove that her writing is of the caliber published in the New York Times.] 

All of a sudden, a second before the doors closed, a man on the platform bent down, picked up my flip-flop and tossed it into the train with impeccable aim, not to mention perfect timing. It landed at my feet just as the doors closed!

He wasn’t going to make that train, and the train pulled away before he could even receive my gratitude. And, he touched a stranger’s shoe. Maybe true altruism does exist.

Ruthie Warshenbrot

DEAR RUTHIE:

No, no. True altruism does not exist in New York City. Clearly, the man was crazy. Either that, or he was not from around here. Real, sane New Yorkers will trip over a flip-flop into a subway car before they will give up their ride at the expense of touching the subway platform with their bare hands.

The lesson drawn from your anecdote should not be “true altruism does exist.” It should be “clumsy women shouldn’t wear flip-flops in the city.”

Diary

DEAR DIARY:

My 8-year-old daughter went to sleep-away camp for the first time this year. One of the boys from her school also attended this camp. He asked her out and escorted her to the final-night party.

At the beginning of the school year, I noticed this boy’s name in the class roster. As we sat down to dinner, I asked my daughter about her first day of school and casually inquired whether she had said hello to her summer date.

Her response, to the look of “Duh,” was: “No, Daddy! The class is gender polarized.”

Ran Kohn

Dear Ran:

You seem to think your parenting skills should be touted in the New York Times. After all, she’s speaking with a seventh-grade vocabulary! The Diary, however, thinks your parenting skills need some sharpening. You’ve raised your daughter to be a smartass. If I had even muttered the word “duh” to my father, he would have said, “don’t get smart with me,” spanked me and sent me to my room. Of course, while the Diary understands that spanking has gone out of favor, the Diary knows that the phrase “don’t get smart with me” is still accepted. Please take note of this.

Also, in case you didn’t know, girls that age should not be dating. I know puberty is coming earlier these days, but I think you need to stop letting your eight-year-old watch Sex and the City. Get your nose out of the Times and start paying a little more attention before your daughter becomes a junior-high slut.

Diary

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 2:03 pm and is filed under The Diary Responds. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.