balloon-popping fun.

i just went out for my lunch break, thinking i could take a nice little walk to barnes & noble, and then eat a hot dog at the zoo. sounded like a nice afternoon. right? right?

oh, yeah. the week after christmas. infestation week. (and in case you didn't know, i work on 5th and 52nd. perfect.)

for a few minutes, your typical new yorker will ignore these annoying heards of people, but when you have to wait at a corner while the traffic light changes from red to greenthree times, you tend to get a little aggrivated about a fifteen-foot walk that ends up taking ten minutes.

so, tourists, i understand: this is your vacation, this is your big chance to look at gigantic fucking trees and eat overpriced salads. you plan this all year. you want to shop in overpriced stores for clothes you either can't afforf, or own three of already. you want to look at "the greatest city on earth" at night, its skycrapers lit up as people work overtime and it's high-end stores brightly decorated for the season. i get it. you love this place.

but, you need to understand: this is my fucking lunch hour. this is the only hour, out of 12, where i get to do whatever i please. i want to go pick up a book to read on my hour and a half commute back home. i want to shop from deli to deli to find an underpriced salad. i want to take a train to chinatown and get knock-off rolexes and mixtapes. i want to walk accross the street when i want, instead of having to walk next to a barrier because one of you was too stupid to judge the speed of a taxi years ago.

us new yorkers have a reputation for being rude. that's great. we probably are. but if someone stood in front of you every five minutes to take a picture of a building, if someone burned your arm with a cigarette butt trying to squeeze into a cliche toy store, if someone told you they couldn't count (yes, all NYC blocks are numbers. if you're looking at sixth avenue, and you're trying to get to fifth, shouldn't you subtract one and walk to the left? is that tough?) four times over, if a three-year-old spit up on your deisel shoes, all in a matter of five minutes, while you were just trying to smoke a cigarette and get back to work, i'm pretty sure you'd be rude to.

maybe we're not rude. maybe you're the rude ones. or maybe you're all just fucking retarted. you want to shop? go to fuckin' ebay. you'll save on shipping. you're ruining my birthplace. so, please,