August 2005 Archives

I've seen things in the last few days, though, that have bolstered my spirits. Yesterday I was riding the subway with a friend. We sat down in two of the seats of a three seat section. A few stops later, we looked down, and saw that on the floor in front of the third seat was a bloody mass. At first, I thought that it might be a fetus, but then ascertained that it was a roll of gauze, possibly from a dental surgery of some kind. A bloodied face mask was also on the ground. We got up quickly and moved seats, but a moment later, a man sat down in the seat directly in front of the bloody pile.

He looked down and then, with a sandaled foot kicked the bloody lump. He then carefully placed his briefcase on top of it, and nonchalantly began reading a magazine.

"Well," I said, "I guess it's time to go back the flags of Europe project."
"Does that mean what I think it does?" she asked, the twinge of concern in her voice overshadowed only by her curiosity.
"Yep," I replied.
"Well," she said, sighing, "At least you are being witty about it."

..
Since then, I've found myself in the position to finally be to use the expression "So that's why they call it French kissing!"

My brother couldn't resist commenting on the situation when he called me the next day.
"Why didn't you answer my call last night?" he asked me accusingly.
"I was on a date," I replied.
"With another fucking foreigner, I hear," he said scornfully, confirming my suspicions about the familial grapevine.
"COME BACK TO AMERICA LINA," he shouted into the phone. "COME BACK TO AMERICA."

"If you ran anywhere," he continued, smiling smugly, "you certainly waited until you had finished scarfing down your hot dog."

I waited a minute for his laughter to subside. "While that may be true," I responded, "you're still an asshole."