Tag Archives: Dyker Heights

This Is Where I Live (3)

16 Aug

August 16, 2012

This is the third installment about life in my little part of Brooklyn. So far I’ve been gassed by the City of New York and treated like crap by a waitress. Can it get any better? Let’s see… Today, Bensonhurst.

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I’ve got some time off coming to me from the Company In which I Am employed and I thought it would be nice if Saarah and I took a little trip. I figured a short overnight trip to Boston would be nice. I like Boston and have nice memories of the city. If I ever left New York (an increasingly attractive prospect) I’d love to live in Boston. I could see myself in Chicago too but I don’t want to live in a town where even the corruption is corrupt. I do have my standards.

But to get back on track, Saarah didn’t want to go to Boston; she’d already been there and wanted to go somewhere she hadn’t been before. Her idea? Delaware.

Yeah, I didn’t get it either.

So I went online a checked out all the exciting and awesome things Delaware has to offer and found that there are no exciting and awesome things in Delaware. Outside of a few museums, and let’s face it, I live in New York, we’ve got museums up the wazoo, there is nothing to do in Delaware.

If you are reading this in Delaware I am sorry. Not for insulting Delaware, just sorry you are stuck there.

Ok, I’m kidding, someone must see something in Delaware.

So Delaware was out and Saarah came up with Maine and after some checking and general internet futzing about I found that there is a lot of stuff like kayaking (which could get us killed), staying in a cabin (which could get me killed by Saarah), haunted tours (in which we’d hope to encounter the spirits of the dead, just not my own), and a pirate festival, which is great since if you read this recent Classic Repost you’d know that I always wanted to be a pirate.

The next day I went to the travel agent who handled my brother’s trip to Japan just to get some information and after driving around for a while looking for a parking spot I discovered that they were closed. Then I remembered that there is a small travel agent literally one block away from my home so I went there.

I walked in and was, well, greeted isn’t the word, I was grunted at by a “travel agent” behind a desk. (You’ll see why it is quotes soon enough.) He was in his late fifties/early sixties, had a full head of snow white hair slicked back, had a thick white mustache, and wore a white button-down shirt which was not buttoned down far enough for a the average man. His shirt was unbuttoned about four buttons lower than you’d like to see but if the purpose was to show off the thick gold chains he was wearing then the shirt did its job admirably.

I’d already drawn a conclusion about this guy and maybe you have too but it was confirmed when he spoke to me.

ME: Hi. I’d like some information about a trip to Maine.
HIM: Maine? Whaddaya wanna go ta Maine for?

It may not be possible but I am typing that in a thick Brooklyn accent.

ME: Well my friend and I were-
HIM: Nah nah nah we don’ do Maine. Maine? Nobody here even goes to that city up thea, you know, Boston.

ME: Ok, then I-
HIM: Well ya know I guess like I could get some airline tickets or something to that city they got up in Maine, aw crap, ya know da one, Pasadena or something. Nobody ever goes ta Maine.

I was ready to walk out but he was still talking and as pointless and useless as this was, I was simply not believing what was going on and my legs had decided that they, and therefore the rest of me, wanted to stick around and hear more.

HIM: Ya want a cruise? I’ll get yous on a cruise, ya leave from Florida or some place and they’ll cruise yous up right past Maine, sail around Pasadena, there’s Maine.

This guy was actually angry that I wanted to go to Maine. Maybe he was holding a grudge against the state? I have no clue. He was hitting the keys on the keyboard in front of him. I’m not convinced he was typing, just hitting at random, and at any rate the monitor was blank and stayed blank.

ME: Thanks, ok, no thanks for the cruise, bye.

I was leaving but he was still going on.

HIM: Look, nobody goes to Maine, we don’ do Maine. We cruise, I’ll getcha a cruise up thea.

I am not saying this was a front for the Mafia but if I wanted a cruise to Italy I’m sure he could hook me right up if you know what I’m saying.

I walked out and actually looked back to make sure that I was in the right place, in case I had walked into the 99 cent store and asked for Maine brochures. But no, it was the travel agency and for the record, the sign proudly states that they have been in business since 1968, long before I was born,

And in 43 years no one has ever gone to Maine.

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This Is Where I Live (1)

14 Aug

August 14, 2012

As backwards as this will sound, I interrupt the summer series of Tuesday reruns to post a new blog. This is the first of a trio of blogs that describe the typically atypical things that I have experienced recently right here in my own neighborhood. Today, Dyker Heights.

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Just last week, Saarah and I (and don’t all these stories involve her? She’s the best) decided to go out for ices. It was around 10:00 on a weeknight. Now where I live, there are plenty of places to go for ices, from pizzerias to bakeries, but we wanted to go a store that specialized in ices and had a great selection of flavors.

We had been there before. The last time there were three girls in small shop, all around 18 or so, and while we were getting our ices Saarah and I got to listen to their amazing discussion, mostly about one of them who lives almost in another borough and commutes by public transportation to work in the ices shop. Why did she come so far to work for minimum wage in a seasonal job? That was never explained and before I got a chance to get all nosey and ask they gave us our ices and we left.

The place is on the edge of a residential area on a major street so it was pretty quiet that night. We parked about two blocks away and, bearing in mind that I had just torn a muscle in my leg a couple of days earlier, we had a very slow walk to the shop. But we were making our way there when we saw some flashing lights down the street and heard some recorded announcement that we couldn’t really make out.

I turned back to look and it seemed to me that maybe it was some election and the announcement was screaming to vote for someone or other in whatever local election was soon to come.

That wasn’t it. As the vehicles drew closer, we saw that the lights and sound were coming from a police car. There was some sort of large truck immediately behind it. And the announcement?

“The City of New York is spraying pesticides to kill mosquitoes to stop the spread of West Nile Virus. Get inside IMMEDIATELY.”

Saarah looked at me.
I looked at her.
We looked at the approaching truck.
We looked around at all the private homes with their locked doors and no lights and no place we could possibly get inside.

Then the truck came and sprayed a huge and smelly cloud of pesticides in the air not six feet above our heads.

What could we do? We resumed walking to the ices shop, convinced that we were dosed with a fatal amount of pesticides. Saarah has stopped eating McDonald’s French fries because of the pesticides they use on the potatoes, so the irony is obvious.

She immediately got a headache.

Thanks to the City of New York, who gave us about 30 seconds warning to get to cover, I may now have an army of poisonous chemicals working its way through my system.

But on the plus side, I do not have West Nile Virus.

30 seconds. Didn’t the British get more warning during the Blitz when an air raid was on the way?

Thanks New York.

Luckily, Vulcans are immune to both Terran pesticides and West Nile Virus.

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