Metropolitan Diary; I Heart NY

Dear Diary:

My 4-year-old son, Micah, and I have the following morning routine:

We take the F train to Seventh Avenue. Micah gets his “morning paper” from the AM New York guy standing at the subway entrance and we walk to the bus stop. At the bus stop, Micah begs me to let him hold my MetroCard and I say no.

One day in January, I was tired, it was cold, we were late. I relented and gave Micah my MetroCard to hold. The bus came, and it was crowded. As we were getting on, I noticed Micah taking off his gloves, and no MetroCard. He had dropped it somewhere. We rode illicitly to school.

The next morning, same routine. We get up the stairs from the subway and Micah goes to get his morning paper. But this time, the AM New York guy stops him and says: “My man, I have been waiting for you all morning. I have something that you dropped yesterday,” and indeed pulls out of his wallet my MetroCard, which he found on the curb after the bus pulled away.

(Of course, then Micah asked to hold it again, because now Mommy has two.)

-Amy Sandgrund