Take This Oreo And Shove It

An Oreo-wielding, Up–With-People-ish, Pollyanna with a used car salesman smile and faux bohemian dress from Urban Outfitters ruined my week.  There I was minding my own business mocking the pseudohippies worshiping at the Imagine Mosaic in Strawberry Fields when Pollyanna approached waving a half-empty tray of Double-Stufs. 

No, it was not half-full.  It was half-empty.  Call me a pessimist if you like, but if you have a tray half-full of Double-Stufs, you have a math problem.  The answer is B: a full tray of Stufs.

Speaking of SAT questions, Strawberry Fields does not have any strawberries and it’s definitely not a field.  What it does have is a mixture of Baby Boomers paying respects to John Lennon and his message of love and harmony together with a mob of stoned, weeping baby boomer offspring in Abercrombie tie-dyes.  Not only was the Abercrombie Generation not even born when Lennon lived and died, but their idea of activism consists of peacefully demonstrating that marijuana is not an antidepressant.  I was tempted — oooh, so tempted — to stir the pot (no pun intended) by calling out, “Snap out of it!  I mean, it’s not like he was Adam Lambert or anything!” Two things stopped me.

One, I was in no mood to fend off patchouli wearing pseudohippies wielding sitars and body odor like NYPD night sticks.  Two, there were Oreos.  Remember how, waaaay up at the top of this post, I mentioned Oreos?  You forgot, didn’t you?  Don’t worry, so did I.  Anyway, I know that you’re not supposed to take anything anyone hands you on the street.  But it was the park, it was sunny, there was music, and rainbows and unicorns, and second hand pot smoke.  And Pollyanna and her group of merry women were singing “All You Need Is Love” and waving to everyone and smiling. It was like a good ol’ fashioned love in without the body fluids. I got caught up in the moment and took the entire tray an Oreo.  And like that, I was doomed.  I had just twisted the top off the Oreo and was scraping my teeth across the creamy Double Stuf goodness when Pollyanna says, “You’ve been tagged!”

Tagged?  What the hell?  Look, bitch, Dingo doesn’t do memes so I’m not buying whatever you’re selling but can I have another Oreo?  Instead of an Oreo, she hands me a card with the following message:

Someone reached out to you with an anonymous act of kindness.  Now it’s your chance to do the same.  Do something nice for someone, leave this card behind, and keep the spirit going!

I would’ve handed the card back if I’d have known the existential crisis it would cause, but I was already up to the part of the Oreo-eating exercise where you suck really hard on your teeth, so I was kinda stuck.  Fuckers.  Who hands out Oreo cookies and then asks people to pay it forward?  Fuckers, that’s who.  Kind twatwaffles who want to screw with my life.  And so I’ve spent the past week running around trying to do kind things for people to get this monkey off my back.  It’s not as easy as you’d think. 

First of all, there are no guidelines. Just how kind do I have to be?  Hold the door open for a group of nuns kind, or rescue a child from adoption by Madonna kind?  I spent all last week in a miasma of kindness.  And it sucked.  Nothing I did seemed worth tagging someone else and saying, “Ha, ha, I did something kind for you, now you’re royally fucked!  Good luck trying to pay off this karmic debt, loser!” I mean, doesn’t tagging someone with the Kindness Card undo the kindness you’ve done?

I thought I was free and clear when I saw a couple rooting around for a quarter to put in the parking meter.  I surprised them by popping a quarter into the meter.  They said, “Thank you!” It was too easy.  I couldn’t give them my card.  Not for a lousy quarter.  I had to do something MORE.  I’ve been scouring the city trying to do something kind enough to warrant giving this burden to someone else.  I thought I was off the hook later that day.  As I turned the corner in the grocery store, I noticed this little old lady trying to reach a can of green beans on the top shelf.  Hopping around on pale little bird legs sticking out of yellow leggings she looked like one of those wind-up chicks you get at Easter.  I kept waiting for her to wind down and fall over.  I got the can for her, threw some birdseed in the aisle behind me, and went on my way.  But I didn’t give her the card.  “Hey, old lady!  You’ve been tagged!  Good luck finding someone shorter than you so you can repay this kindness!  Maybe you should carry a ladder with you everywhere from now on to keep this from happening to you again, huh?” It just seemed wrong. 

I keep thinking that I should just toss the card, but I can’t.  So, I’m a wandering Persephone, doomed by an Oreo to be kind to people.  Except Pollyanna.  If I ever see that bitch again I’m going to punch her in the face. 

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And Dingo Came Tumbling After

If the name Central Park Dance Skaters brings to mind the snoozefest of Brian Boitano and that girl who always looks as if she slathered her hair with bear grease and had Bobo the Monkey apply her make-up Oksana Baiul on roller skates, stop right there.  Imagine the showmanship of MC Hammer dancing on a treadmill (include the Hammer pants), throw in a couple of George Clinton look-alikes and some well-meaning white people trying to channel Vanilla Ice.  Now, imagine all of them skate dancing on old-school roller skates to music you wish your parents played at the family BBQ.  Are you feelin’ it yet?  Are your feet tapping and hips shakin’ to Turn This Mutha Out? Perhaps you’re groovin’ to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition? Well, stop it.  Your co-workers are wondering if you’re having some sort of seizure.  Anyway, The Central Park Dance Skaters are free entertainment every Saturday and the crowd lining the edge of the impromptu rink and sitting on the nearby hill have as much fun watching as the skaters have skating. 

I would love to join the skaters but, alas, I have no inner Pam Grier (the only Foxy Brown, in my book) to let loose in the skating rink.  I’m more Marcia Brady, and Innernetz, believe me, no one wants to see her milkshake.  I also have a disorder that prevents me from taking part in activities requiring coordination and agility.  The scientific name for it is falldown uncoordinated cantwalkand khewgum embarrassment disorder.  Most people simply refer to it as FUCKED.  I’ve been susceptible to FUCKED all my life. It tends to strike without warning and with as much humiliation as possible. 

You’d like an example?  My, you are a bloodthirsty crowd, aren’t you?  But because I love you, here goes . . .  . It was the week before my law school mid-terms and I needed a study break and some exercise. I laced up my rollerblades and decided that I would skate to Town Center to run some errands. I had never skated to Town Center before.  The tree-lined street I lived on ran through a residential area but it was heavily traveled by eighteen-wheelers and dump trucks careening down the street like they’d just heard Carmen Electra was giving free blow jobs at the local truck stop.  And if the streets were bad, the sidewalks were worse.  Small, cramped, and controlled by the mommies with their SUV strollers riding up the back of your ankles and their organic unbleached hemp diaper bags swinging ominously from their shoulders like Poe’s pendulum.

In spite of the road and sidewalk hazards, I set out on my journey.  Hell, I’d just spent six hours studying Property Law, I think I subconsciously wanted a truck or a heavy duty double-wide stroller to put me out of my misery.  I had to use the sidewalk because the street was packed.  One of the local schools had a football game scheduled for later that afternoon and all the entrances to the football field were backed up at least two miles in every direction.  I waved to the tailgaters and rowdy fans as if I were a one-woman promotional tour for Starlight Express.  Successfully dodging the mommy brigades and their diaper bags of doom, I made it to Town Center with all limbs intact.  After a lunch of Rocky Road ice cream, I picked up a few books , toilet paper, and a 2-liter Diet Coke, stuck them into my backpack and headed home. 

“Funny, I don’t remember having to blade up such a steep incline!” I thought to myself as I stood on wobbly ankles at the top of what looked like an Olympic Ski Jump. I could see my apartment at the bottom of the hill as if peering through the wrong end of a telescope.  “And when did those retaining walls get here?” Many of the yards had the four-foot tall stone walls for which New England is famous.  Other homes simply let their lawns gently slope to the sidewalk.  Both options thwarted my plan to use the grass as an emergency brake. 

I began my descent.  All went well until I hit a root sticking through a crack in the sidewalk.  I probably would’ve been able to regain my balance if it weren’t for the books and Diet Coke shifting around in the backpack.  My arms flailed in all directions but my feet kept moving forward.  Houses, trees, and cars passed by at supersonic speed.  All I could think of was, “Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall,” as if barreling down the sidewalk like a marionette on meth was a better alternative. 

During my rapid descent and my attempts to stay upright, the tips of my roller blades danced off the sidewalk in frantic pointe work, tap tap tap, but as I picked up momentum they became mini-jackhammers, taptaptaptaptap.  I was running on my toes trying to catch up to my dignity when I hit another root.  And. Went. Flying.  My feet left the sidewalk and curved into a grassy embankment.  “Whew!” I thought, “I’ll finally stop.” But, no.  I was going too fast.  I launched up the embankment as if propelled from a sling shot.  Up, up, up, I went!  Time stopped.  I was suspended in mid-air among the clouds.  Weightless.  I could touch the sun.  Oh, Icarus! 

I landed on my books and Diet Coke.  The backpack exploded and I was doused with caramelly, carbonated, high fructose corn syrup.  One of my roller blades came off.  It was going up as I was falling down.  I could see it reach its apex and pause for a moment, a serpent about to strike, before it started its rapid free fall toward my head.  I threw my hands up over my face and rolled.  Down the embankment.  Across the sidewalk.  To the curb.  Leaving Diet Coke and clumps of Charmin in my wake.

My loose skate followed me down the embankment but when it hit the sidewalk it rolled four more feet before coming to a stop.  I don’t know how long I sat at the curb staring dizzily at the cars as I gathered my breath and checked for broken bones (there were none).  I do know that with the hundreds of eyes staring at me from the road, none of those fuckers came to help.  No one asked how I was or if I was hurt.  I tried to give them the finger but my hands were so sore my fingers wouldn’t bend.  I’m sure those who bothered to look my way wondered why the girl with one skate was giving them the high-five.  I hope their team lost.  And got jock itch.  Fuckers.  Somehow, I retrieved my loose skate and, one skate off, one skate on, hobbled the remaining quarter mile of shame home where my landlord who was out raking the leaves saw me, dropped her rake, ran inside and returned with a towel, band aids, and two cocktail glasses full of Tennesse’s finest. We drank it with what was left of the Diet Coke.

I know my limits and no matter how fun it looks, The Central Park Skate Dancers will have to do without me.  But, since I already know I can fly, I signed up for a one day class at the New York Trapeze School.  So, who wants to hold my Jack and Coke?

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