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Secret Schmucky Santa (Classic Repost)

28 Dec

December 28, 2011

Things have sure changed since I wrote this three years ago. A new job, a real office, and people who are professional, as opposed to the weirdos and misanthropes you’ll read about below, myself included. And not only has my environment changed, I have too. I am so not the same guy you’ll read about below.

from December 20, 2008

My new place does Secret Santa. That’s where you pick a name and give that person a present. I always used to cheat. I’d just keep picking names until I found someone I wanted to buy for and stuck the other names back in. Sure it went against the spirit of the thing, but if I wanted to buy a pair of sweat socks for some biological toilet then I’d donate to the kids on tv with flies on their faces. Oh sure, they’re hungry. And sure, they’re poor. And yes, they have homes that Brooklyn homeless laugh at, and of course their country has the gross domestic product of an average kindergarten class penny fair and the main export is disease, but man alive, could you just brush the damn flies off your face? Look at that commercial- the flies are crawling in their eyes. How could you let them crawl around your iris like that? Have you corneas? The flies that crawl in their mouths are different. That’s protein. Just swallow. But jeez, flies in the eyes? That’s just wrong.

This year I forgot to pick so I was given the last name in the box. It didn’t matter though, I barely know anybody and quite frankly, I’m not sure why I put my name in. It was just some silly impulse to fit in. Like I ever will. Or want to. It took me six years at Lafayette before I even knew we had a football team.

But I did it and then the other shoe dropped- we give gifts for AN ENTIRE WEEK. Monday through Thursday we give little things, for a couple of dollars, and on Friday we give a bigger thing for around twenty.

MONDAY

I gave a thermal coffee mug which cost me nothing because when my brother went grocery shopping I stuck it in his cart. I picked the only one without a Santa on it because the person getting it was Jewish. I got a nice Ansel Adams calendar. It had great black and white nature photography. I love b+w photography. I think it was regift. It had a crushed corner and the price was way above the limit. Oh, and it was from 2007. (No, not really.)

TUESDAY

I gave a small box of Whitman chocolate and some candy canes. Again, no cost- my brother’s grocery cart. I got a small handwritten note. A love letter? No. A hate letter? More likely, but no. A death threat? Well, I don’t think anyone I ever worked with wanted to kill me (except for Kathy last year, but she needed me too much) so that was out. It was a handwritten note asking me to go the cafeteria and get a free bagel and juice. Nice, but hardly personal. This was school stuff. It cost the giver nothing because she runs Café McKee and didn’t lay out a cent. OK, technically, I didn’t either, but it was akin to me giving an eraser and some chalk.

WEDNESDAY

I gave a small metal reindeer picture holder. Cost to me? Nothing. The family went holiday shopping the night before and when Mom was buying my brother something I just stuck it on the counter. Hey, what’s $3.99 between family? I got a bag of an unknown brand of chocolate coins. Before you think that chocolate coins are appropriate gifts for a Jew at Hanukkah, consider that the coins were chocolate versions of American coins, with a smiling George Washington on the bag. I tried a coin, tasted what may have been chocolate that passed it’s expiration date sometime in the last century, and chucked out coins.

THURSDAY

For the first time, I spent some money- $1.99 for a box (½ price) of Ferro Rocher candy. I got a mug. Pretty nice, standard, actually, with a small ribbon that said ‘excellent teacher.’ Bearing in mind the bad week I had, I tossed out the ribbon. It made a small super-sonic boom on the way to the trash can. The mug is in my closet, waiting to be regifted to the woman in the copy room next week. This gift was too big to fit in my mailbox. When that happens, we just put the gift on the table next to the mailboxes. For some reason my Secret Santa asked Elena next door to bring it to me. For anonymity, Elena went out of her way to tell me that it was from my Secret Santa, not her. Then it turned into a Seinfeld routine. (Not that I wouldn’t give you a gift, not this particular gift, we could exchange gifts, etc.) I think I better get her something because she might have talked herself into getting me something. I wonder if she’d like a slightly rumpled Ansel Adams calendar? For my part, the best gift I could get next week is a couple of days of ‘I’m staying in my room, don’t come in, anyone.’ (Unless it is Elena with a gift.)

FRIDAY

I went to Rite Aid, home of all last-minute Secret Santa shoppers, and bought a gift set with a couple of cocoa mugs, some cocoa, and an Irish whiskey flavored powder to put on the rim. I have no idea what that does because when I drink hot chocolate I pour the powder in a mug, add hot water from the tap, nuke it for a minute, and stir. That’s my level of sophistication. I got a Cross pen and pencil set. That was bad. I have bad associations with Cross pen and pencil sets. Almost every job I ever left, I was given a Cross set. I have, no joke, three sets, (now four) in my dresser drawer. Maybe she knows something I don’t. That is bad juju.

Oddly enough my Secret Santa was the same person I was buying for. I knew this a week ago when the person sat down and subtlety pumped me for information. ‘Do you like chocolate? Is that a crossword puzzle book? Can I look at it? What did it cost?’

I also today used the free bagel and juice note for breakfast. (No, I didn’t eat it- I redeemed it.) I had planned to not use it at all. It was just too cheesy. But my Secret Santa, after identifying herself and telling me how much she loved the cocoa thing, acted offended that I didn’t get my bagel, and should she send one down? “Oh man, I forgot all about it! I’ve been so busy! Yes, send me down a bagel with cream cheese and an orange juice! Thanks, you’re the best!”

Next year, God willing, when I’m working way, way out of the public sector, I hope to not have to do a Secret Santa at all. I am just not cut out for it. I like who I like, ignore the rest, and don’t play the game. No wonder I am so beloved.

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A New York Minute (7)

19 Dec

December 19, 2011

Welcome to your New York Minute.

While I do ride the subway everyday, I don’t usually take the F train. But on this particular day I was meeting a friend after work and she lives right by the F station so there I was. The F train isn’t one of the cleaner subway rides but is one of the more visible. For much of its run the F line is elevated and it is hard to miss, for reasons I’ll soon explain.

I am willing to bet that most of you know this train line, actually, I bet most of you know one little piece of it as it figures into a scene in one of my favorite movies. No, no Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. My favorite movie is Goodfellas.

Towards the end of the film, mobster Henry Hill was caught by the feds and Jimmy the Gent, played by an amazing Robert DeNiro, was getting ready to whack him. Henry’s wife Karen had gotten a call from Jimmy and went to see him in one of his warehouses. They talked a little and Jimmy offered to give Karen some swag dresses. All she had to do was walk down the block and into a sketchy warehouse. Karen got cold feet, thinking that Jimmy was going to whack her – I love all this mob talk- and jumped in her car and zoomed off. That whole scene was filmed right by the Gowanus canal under the F train. You can’t miss it, the girders and beams of the elevated line frame the whole outdoor part of the scene. In fact, the warehouse is right below the Smith/9th Street station. Since Goodfellas is on the AFI Top 100 list I am willing to bet you’ve seen it.

One interesting note is at that point, if you are riding the train, you are on the highest point of anywhere on the NYC transit system. The Smith/9th Street station rises 87 ½ feet over the city. Opened in 1933, there was actually shipping on the Gowanus canal and the train line had to be that tall to let the ships pass below. If you’ve seen the Gowanus today, the idea of major commerce on that clogged piece of water seems ridiculous, but things have changed quite a bit in the last century.

You can get a really nice view of South Brooklyn and lower Manhattan from this part of the subway (and yes, we still call it the subway even when it is high in the air) but don’t try to visit that station just yet- it is being renovated until 2012, and knowing how NYC operates, probably the year after that.

But if you are interested in getting high- I mean height, hop off the train and go over the historic Greenwood Cemetery, right   near Park Slope. Many notable people are buried there; from Abner Doubleday, the man  who invented baseball, to more Southern Civil War generals than you expect this far north. It is a sprawling place, over 478 acres, and if you want to find the highest point above sea level in Brooklyn, this is it.

Battle Hill is found inside Greenwood Cemeteryand it was the sight of a major battle of the Civil War, part of the Battle of Long Island. You don’t hear much about it outside of history books but this was a big one. To commemorate it, a statue of the goddess Minerva was built there and from that height it has a direct line of sight to the Statue of Liberty, to whom it’s raised hand seems to be waving.

I could go on and on  about Greenwood Cemetery, and with some authority, since I graduated from Greenwood Cemetery.

I’ll pause to let that sink in. I graduated from a cemetery.Greenwoodruns a series of tours and some years back, in one of the hottest summers I can remember, I spent a series of three weekends tramping over the hills taking a guided tour of the place that culminated in a graduation ceremony and yes, I got a certificate at the end. So take your Wharton School of Business MBA and your Harvard diploma, who needs them? I am a proud alumnus of Greenwood Cemetery.

And as a proud alumnus, I have to tell you about the parakeets. Those of you who have never seen them may not believe this given the cold climate, but Brooklyn boasts a thriving population of wild parrots. One major colony nests in the main arches of the cemetery, and another lives at Brooklyn College, from which I also graduated. I think those parakeets are following me. And even though those are their main grounds, the colorful birds can often be seen- and especially heard- in many parts of Brooklyn.

The accepted story is that in the 1960’s, a shipment of the birds escaped from their containers at Idlewild airport and made their way to the cemetery, where their descendants still live today. No one at the time expected them to live through their first New York winter, but we New Yorkers are a hearty breed.

Idlewild is the original name of Kennedy Airport, and if you saw Goodfellas you’d know that, bringing us back full circle.

This has been your New York Minute with a Robert DeNiro cameo.

An audio version of this legend first appeared just last week in the amazing FlashPulp website. Check them out for awesomeness and goodies!

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