Only two days left.

Welcome to day 5 of "People Who Feel Entitled To Appropriate Public Spaces" week. If you didn't get the memo (like me), consider yourself warned and/or invited to participate in the festivities.

PWFETAPS got off to a great start Monday morning when I opened the main door of my building and found an elderly woman occupying the stoop, which is nothing unusual in itself. The 1st floor of my building is an office, so I frequently encounter people waiting for their appointments in the hall or on my stoop. When I do, we usually say "Good morning," or "Hello." However when I opened the (locked) door that day, this old dear stood, glared, moved to the middle of the steps, spread her little frail being out as far as she could, looked left, looked right, and then looked left again, took a sideways step, glared once more, and grunted a Skeletor-meets-crossing guard go-ahead, "Okay, alright. I suppose you can go by now." I could have pointed out that I don't need permission to leave my own building, but because old folks make me spineless I ended up thanking her, repeatedly. I may be misremembering but I think I bowed at her as well.

Not two minutes later I arrived at subway turnstiles blocked by two unattended strollers with babies in them. I looked around for the parent(s), as did the growing number of people around me also unable to get through the turnstiles to the platform --at rush hour, as the train was pulling in the station. Our eyes found who we assumed (hoped) the kids belonged to: the two woman arguing with the station manager. Neither seemed particularly interested or concerned with the whereabouts of their children, nor the logjam their abandonment of them had created. The train reached the platform and a man behind me said, "C'mon! Just push the strollers out of the way." I began, "ooooOOh no. I'm not gonna..." but he cut me off, grabbed one of the strollers and rolled it to the side freeing up a single lane. However before he could swipe his MetroCard, a scream (I had predicted, and was in the process of warning him about) came from behind us. "No you DIDN'T just touch MY BABY! Where THE FUCK do you GET OFF thinking you can just MOVE other people's children? Who THE FUCK are you?" Now the babies and the women and the dirty baby-mover were blocking the turnstiles. The rest of us, about twenty, gave up. We stepped back to get a good view of the train pulling away.

The teen boys who occupy our stoop every night haven taken full advantage of PWFETAPS week. They've tripled in number, making it so we've been unable to listen to music or watch a movie (or any TV at all) since our stereo and television's volume do not exceed the decibel level of their shouts and pager beeps and endless debates on the topic of the taking of shits and blow jobs and who could kick who's ass along with other sundry themes which --although they would strongly protest are in no way homoerotic-- invariably involve the anus.

But I encountered the PWFETAPS master at the grocery store Wednesday. We arrived at an empty check-out lane at the same time, she with a cart full of groceries, me with a single 89¢ drink in my left hand and exact change visible in my right. Overcome with PWFETAPS spirit, she forced her cart ahead of me, slowly unloaded her tens of grocery items onto the conveyer belt, and then pushed past me again, this time to disappear back into the aisles to finish the rest of her shopping. She returned several minutes later with a second basket-full for the check out girl (who refused to let me leave the 89¢ with her because such a thing is "against store policy") to take an eternity to ring up, which she did, finally. Just in time for the PWFETAPS master to invent the most time consuming method of payment known to mankind. Evidently leaving exact change for an item is against my local grocery's policy, but forcing the check out girl to divide your bill in three so that you may pay part check, part cash, and the balance with store bonus coupons and a credit card, is not. Genius.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of PWFETAPS week. And be creative! Try walking six abreast on the sidewalk so no one can pass. Find a way to take up an entire bench on the subway while remaining seated (with pregnant women and elderly people strap-hanging nearby) using nothing other than your limbs and a "Don't even THINK about it" scowl. Make sure you choose the most inappropriate place (the entrance to a business, or hospital) to have a lengthy argument with your lover. Save up a year's worth of banking transactions and do them all at once at the only ATM in a large neighborhood. On Friday. At six thirty. Make sure the world knows of your love for Fifty Cent, preferably at three in the morning. Because you're the center of the universe, baby. It's all about you.

Posted by Antigeist at June 18, 2004 01:48 PM