Ingredients
- 3 potatoes hurled at your head from an apartment window (I'm not kidding), which cause you to stop, look up, and stare at the faceless being standing in said window. You move to walk again. They hurl again. You stop, look, stare again. You actually shout the words "don't throw potatoes at me!", because that is SO EFFECTIVE. And definitely not potentially dangerous. You move on.
- 1 hookah, connected to 1 man, sitting on one subway bench seat, located directly next to yours. You see smoke out of the corner of your eye. You pause. You think. No way. You turn. You see hookah. You move on. (Oh, but first you roll your wide eyes and dramatically grab your belongings. Only then can you move away.)
- 6 seats on a subway bench (these need not be associated with hookah):
Sit on the edge seat of an underground subway bench. Blow your nose, and stand up to throw away your tissue in a nearby trash can. Turn around-- no, that's silly-- only semi-turn around and back your bum backwards into your seat. Begin to sit down. Free fall through the air. Congratulations. You've now hit the pavement; specifically, your butt has hit the pavement and your head has bumped up against the metal bars of the gate behind you. You pause. You look up, of course, to see if anyone saw you. They did. They care-- so you quickly shrug it off! You're totally fine! They stop caring. You sit on the ground. You don't move on. - 10+ years spanning an age range of which you somehow manage to ride in a single audition/callback session. You get called in for the role of a child. You get asked to read for the role of her step-mother. You read for both parts. Everyone else around you knows this, including the taller, older women more (reasonably) appropriate for the age of the step-mother. They don't seem too happy with you. You stand on your tiptoes. You move on.
- 3 hours and 3 minutes past midnight, when you must awake to the clear & heavy sounds of Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" coming from the window? the bathroom window? the apartment hallway? the floor? every pore of the ethos not withholding the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy? You pause. You check the time. You realize what awful lyrics are protruding into your brain. You also realize it's the first time you've heard the streets blast a song in English... You don't care. You go to the bathroom. You search the bathroom for the noise. Shockingly unhelpful. You return to your room, open your curtains, and proceed to execute the only rational option: "turn your music down!" Again, SUCH EFFECTIVE verbiage you shout. You move on.... Wait. Actually, after the blurred lines of appropriateness in playable popular music ends, all the music ends... you... you did it! You won! You sleep! This is awesome! That's all it took? What a nice surprise. Good night! (No one should ever tell you that this was merely a freak coincidence, and that you should've realized that "Blurred Lines" is scientifically proven as the only appropriate way to end a late September evening. Ride that fantasy high as long as you can. It's presumable it won't last for long.)
Instructions
Here's... here's what I'm gonna say about all these... mishaps: No one likes the ER! Stop trying to go there!
Emergency rooms cost a lot of money, as I found out two years ago when I got hit by a car near Northwestern's campus and then didn't go to the ER until the next morning thus refusing the free granted ER visit directly post-accident... not bitter about that at all... Emergency rooms cost you an arm and a leg (?pun?), a lot of time, and usually the respect/trust of your common sense from at least one important person in your life. What happens when you get injured in New York City? I thought having a 4-month stress fracture (unrelated to bike incident) with an addition of crutches on Northwestern's campus was bad-- New York doesn't even have cars! You see them, driving around, sure. But do you actually know anybody who actually has a car? That's right, NYC hires people to drive cars and make your taxi ride slower. You didn't know that, but now you do. That's called learning.
If you injure yourself in New York City, I imagine that you will continue on with life as normal, except you'd have to check which subway stops are handicap accessible (because not all of them are!!?). You will be allowed to feel 80% less guilty about using the free delivery service of pretty much everything everywhere, even if it's only two feet away from your building: apples, wine, cleaning detergent, restaurant fare, laundry, electronics, yoga, your mother, the Titanic. You want it? You name it. Someone somewhere will deliver it to you. But mostly the groceries-- they'll really deliver the groceries. Freely delivered groceries from one of the bodegas 30 seconds away from your apartment front door is the sole incentive for putting yourself in direct lines of danger via potatoes, secondhand smoke, subway cement, feisty actors, and yelling outside your window at people a lot larger and more confidently active at 3am than you. This city is dangerous, but that is because it has so much opportunity. Well, Dangerous Ones, let's go-- as long as you don't get any further ideas about talking back to airborne potatoes in an unfamiliar area or screaming at people loving music in front of your apartment! Know thy limits. Break them when you're attempting to over-achieve at your job or in an audition, but... outside? In association with other citizens? When it comes to, at least, your physical well-being, exist in an invisible film of bubble wrap-- because we can't all be lucky enough to run into Hugh Jackman.
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| He was saving her from falling after she tripped. If that wasn't abundantly clear. |
Also, bring a supply of Band-Aids everywhere! Some of these corner stores can store some pretty shady excuses for adhesive bandages... from the 1970s... do I wish I was kidding?
Also also, what's the #1 rule of safety from ny.com? "Finding a Bathroom". That should tell you something. That isn't even a rule-- it's a statement of a problem you're going to encounter. Watch out for yourself, pack Band-Aids, and install Charmin's Sit or Squat app.
