Metropolitan Diary; Sometimes I wonder

DEAR DIARY:

A parking space on my block! So rare an occurrence that I smile inside when drivers slow down and cast inquiring glances in my direction, hoping I’m leaving.


Exiting my car, I murmur thanks to the parking gods, when suddenly a familiar voice comes from somewhere amid the 30 or so black plastic garbage bags piled high on the sidewalk nearby.

Being a New Yorker, I walk briskly on, pretending not to hear; but being a New Yorker, I can’t help returning to the spot to have another listen. Wafting over the smelly pile, Brian Lehrer of WNYC is exit-polling the Tuesday primary. Inside one bag is a discarded radio.


-Patricia Lobosco


"""""""""""""""""""""""


HOME SWEET HOME


Sometimes I wonder

Why I reside in this artificial kingdom,

Betrothed to the dangle of a dollar

Stuck on the heel of my dirty shoe.

When the din of my own meandering mind

Is too loud to bear,

I’ll stumble to a mirror

And spy the city breathing in my ear.

If I were to fly away to a rolling land,

Where dogs aren’t carried in bags,

Where the earth is soft if I should fall,

I guess I would long to see pinstripes

And pizza dough whirling through the air.


-Sascha Radetsky


""""""""""""


Dear Diary:

I boarded the A train at Columbus Circle on a recent morning, groggy with sleep and trying to tune out the tinny cacophony of numerous “personal” music systems. On taking my seat I was greeted by a rather unusual announcement:

“This is the ‘A’ experience to Lefferts Boulevard. Stand clear of the closing doors and have an interesting morning.”

I’m not sure if the conductor had been listening to too much Jimi Hendrix the night before, or if this is just the latest in an evolutionary line of valedictions that started with “Have a nice day.”

-John Hull



"""""""""""""""""


Dear Diary:

It took a split second. There I was standing over one of those intimidating subway grates, horrified that my beautiful watch had fallen off my wrist and — kerplunk! — was lying 20 feet below me among dirt and cigarette butts. I could see it, but how could I get it?

This happened last month on Broadway near 19th Street. The grate seemed to be cemented into the sidewalk, and the only way down there would be through the locked subway tracks. First I called 311 to file a report, then the M.T.A., and finally I called my parents.

Never fear, said Super Dad, and he ran off to corral a patrol car. The officers turned out to be everything good you’re taught as a kid to expect of the men in blue. As one officer kept his ear to the radio (“If we get a call, we’ve got to go”), the other fished and fished with a makeshift hook and a yellow police-line tape. What ingenuity! What patience! What chivalry! But no watch.

Dad ran off to a nearby sports store to buy a fishing rod. As he returned, the M.T.A. arrived. With a crowbar they could lift the grate, but they needed the right ladder. Whiz! Bam!

The ladder arrived, and before I knew it, the watch was back in my hands (and safely in my purse).

My father tried to reward the workers who saved the day, but they all refused with the same refrain: “We’re just doing our job.”

Jessica Sigelbaum