Why NYC Scares Me: Reason 586 of 2750284038

This story is a little old, but I was reminded of it a minute ago as I received a Tweet from Zak Bagans saying,

"In a cab with the driver he's 80 years old and is driving like mario andrettie and keeps cursing... this dude rocks"

Please keep in mind I wrote it verbatim, sans punctuation, proper spelling and the like. Anyway, I was brought back to this past New Years.


When the Jersey Shore took over the bar we were at, we decided to call it a night. The walk from the bar to Grand Central wasn't that bad, but after being on our feet in our stilettos, it seemed almost unbearable. Allie quickly made it known that the girls were NOT walking, and although the men of the group were insisting that there would be no way we could hail a cab on New Years, Allie almost immediately proved them wrong.


I don't want to say I was a non-believer but I did secure my own ride, and when I heard her calling me to get in the cab, I quickly jumped off The Rag's back and ran over to the yellow slice 'o heaven. 


The driver... was a creeper. Some form of Middle Eastern and clearly had no issues with letting us know exactly what was on his mind. About us, about the girl in the little blue piece of fabric (blue was his favorite color - he slowed down to offer her a ride), about how much he likes boobies and let's not forget the deal - if we flashed boobies, our ride was discounted. Not free, but discounted. Classy.


When there were no more, "oh my God, look at HER"'s he asked, "so you guys are all already drunk, huh?" - I'm paraphrasing here, I can't quite remember the exact creepy question he asked, but Allie didn't think twice before answering, "YUP!" NO, ALLISON! NO! Why would you ever admit that?! I had to try and save it, "not me! Totally sober." And I was, I wasn't lying, but he also had to know that there was no way he was going to see/touch/lick/whatever any type of boobie in that disgusting cab.


Before we reached our destination, Allie told him to stop by a bank so we could get cash out of the ATM. When he pulled up along the cub outside of the bank, Allie jumped out, leaving Maggie and I in the cab so that he'd be rest assured that we weren't going to bail without paying (which we completely should've done). What does Maggie do? She closes the cab door. NO, MAGGIE! NO! Why would you DO that?! What if this creeper wanted to drive us off and do awful, disgusting things? You'd be okay because you're wasted, but me? I'd be conscious of the whole debacle! 


Allie runs back to the cab, gets in and a few blocks later we were at the glorious train station and we're not sure how it happened, but the guys were already there, half-eaten wraps in-hand. At least we didn't have to walk.

NYE, En Why Eeek!

Well, at least now I know what it's like to live like a rock star... minus the uh, booze and sex, but everything else is pretty much spot-on including the lack of sleep and showering.

I stepped off the plane thinking about how I was going to pull off walking outside without busting my butt on some form of iced surface. Success (although I can't say the same for a certain native, but I won't mention any names, Allie). After walking what seemed like miles to my ride, I felt like I was living the life of a Charlie's Angel while Bosley gave me my orders. "We're on a mission. We have to pick up Allie." Roger that.
Note: It was a some point after that and before the next section that Miss Congeniality busted her butt in her own driveway.

Al and Mags brought the entire dress section of their closet with them to try on before choosing their weapon for the evening. Me? I had a black thing. No, seriously. It was a one-size fits all... thing. Oh, and it was black.

After hauling hiney in the parking lot of the train station (I never signed up for the running part), we managed to catch our train no thanks to the cabbie who forgot to come pick us up. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the conspiracy where the lovely town of Poughkeepsie only had one working ticket machine on New Years Eve, so everyone had to pay an extra $5 on the train for a ticket. Nice job, I almost wish I had thought of that.

What's that, you say? Now we have to walk to the bar? I don't want to say, "lucky me," but in this case, I suppose I had one-up on the gals. I at least had boots on. Mags and Al were bare legged and in platforms and strappy-heels. Win!

 Now, here comes the good part. Due to what I'm going to call an "overexertion of alcoholic consumption" on Christmas Eve (that's a whole other blog I spared you of), I didn't even want to look at liquor (or a toilet bowl) on NYE. I nursed a beer the entire night. Sadly, I was the only one.

At least my sobriety gave me a chance to actually look around and see where I was. I felt like I was in the middle of an episode of The Jersey Shore. There was a douche with a horn the whole night who Rag and I endearingly dubbed, "The Horn." His brother with a noise-maker was "The Clicka (clicker)," and let's not forget the greasy Rico Suave who was dubbed, "The Problem." And what's up with the ladies being fall-down drunk? Please tell me I don't look like that. I mean literally fall-down drunk. So drunk they don't even realize they're sitting on the floor in front of the bathroom... or care to get up.

After the classy bar did the countdown to the ball dropping a whopping 2 times, we got our (their) sloppy selves together and bailed for the evening. Us ladies refused to walk at this point being that our feet felt like they were walking on knives with every step. Some non-believer in the group insisted,

"you're not going to get a cab, it's New Years. Just walk."

We sent in the secret weapon: Al in a hot pink piece of fabric. I hopped off of Rag's back with the quickness (yes, I was having him carry me) and ran over to our cab. Now, this is a whole other problem: Our pervy cabbie talking about boobs and favorite colored dresses and drunk girls, but I don't care to relive that moment.

I was anxiously waiting to see how many idiots couldn't hold their liquor and would make the train their own personal vomit bag, but alas, we were the only group with an idiot. 3 times worth the idiot, but I digress. It was great to spend the start of another year with those I love.

The next evening I practiced my artistic abilities and gathered all of the snow I could to build a snowman. Behold my "snowchild":

I think I slept a total of maybe 10 hours and I showered approximately once the entire trip. By the next morning not only was I spent, but I was out and on my way back to South Florida where I was greeted by 50° weather. What am I, the Pied Piper? It was okay, though. I was ready for my fork - I was done.

Resolution Woes

I love people who make New Years resolutions. I love hearing/reading about what their new goals are for the next 12 months as they pray that it will help to make "a better year." I, personally, haven't made any resolutions in a couple of years and I intend to keep it that way.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a downer and I'm not trying to break the tradition of setting fun or important goals for myself, but I have a whole little common-sensed theory on it all:

Only YOU can make the next year better.

 Thought I was going to say, "prevent forest fires?" Au contraire, although it is true. Stop hoping for things to get better. The only thing that changes is the year. The Earth doesn't reset on it's axis realigning with the rest of the universe in order to magically make a magnetic vortex which attracts positive energy. Wow, that was a mouthful (or fingertip full).


So, setting goals is great and fun, but they're only going to happen if you make them happen. Same thing with hoping 2010 is better than 2009. It's only going to be better if you make it better. Think positively, put yourself in an emotionally better place and then 2010 will be as amazing as you make it!


Happy New Year!