New York: Meeting People - Part III

What's a holiday without cultural exchange?

'We' doesn't mean You & I

Now that was awkward.

And I mean, I'd never been given the face before. The face that wholeheartedly said, "Look, I don't know you, but either way, I'm heterosexual." Holy moly if I only get one chance to be beamed up, Scotty, let it be now.

On 23rd June, rain darting down on Manhattan sidewalks and fizzling like cold water on screaming hot teflon streets, I found myself struggling with my umbrella and map in the southward direction on Fifth Avenue, wondering why it is that I never figure out where I'm going before leaving the hotel.

Feeling aimless, I detour into a quiet breakfast place for refuge. Have to regroup, I thought. Need to rethink my day now that the streets were turning soggy. Sit down, eat, study the map, and regroup.

I asked for their Breakfast Set No.2. You'd think after forklifting my belly out of restaurants in the US would have taught me to order a little more conservatively. So shoot me, I'm a slow learner.

I'll have the creamy cauliflower soup too, thanks. Doh!

Checked out and started chin-wagging with the cashier chick. Asked her directions to an Internet cafe, and where else I could offload my hard-earned cash besides at all the other shopping stores I'd already been to. She was happy to help.

Food arrives and as usual, hungry for food as I am for good views, I ask: "Can we go upstairs?"

I get the face. I don't recognise it.

"Oh, is it closed?"

Now she speaks, one eye-brow raised so high it's lost over her hairline, her body retracting further back and slouching on one shoulder.

"You and I? Go upstairs?"

One...two...three seconds....

Hey Oblivion, meet Realisation. Realisation, say hello to Oblivion.

There's something about having just picked up a girl, unintentionally, and now trying to defend your sexuality, without sounding as if you're covering up your disappointment of her rejecting your lesbian advances. Your stuttering and fumbling does nothing for your efforts to diffuse this sinking misunderstanding you've inflicted upon yourself.

'We' and 'Us' are everywhere in Australia. I do prefer it too. Just seems more polite, I think, instead of 'I want this, I want to go here, Give ME...Please show ME this...'

Obviously, I didn't explain this very well to her.

Before I exit I apologise to her once again, and I'm convinced she's absolutely none the wiser when she replies with deliberate emphasis,"WE don't mind. It doesn't bother US". And she smiles.

She's mocking me, isn't she?

Sigh. I give up.

What can you get for a dollar?

A slightly dramatised story that has a slow start, garnished in the middle with a bit of suspense, a nice-to-know lesson, and ends somewhat in a Hollywood-style finish i.e. happy ending, befitting of its setting at LA International Airport.

Not exactly your episode of 24, but I had exactly an hour to make a phonecall, have my luggage delivered to LAX from a god-knows-how-far offsite storage facility, check-in, proceed through the security screenings and board my flight from LA to NY.

Armed with a dollar bill, I became the one no one wanted to know. While everyone went about their own business, I was the lone wanderer who invaded the personal space of highly cautious and suspicious travelers, not surprising if a dozen security cameras were already closing in on me (keep up, hey? - we're talking American airports here!) as I went in search of someone who could break the bill for me.

"Do you have two fifties for a dollar?"

The African-American taxi attendant screws his face up, shakes his head and says, "Huh? What do you want?"

I tilt my head back to look up at him towering over me.

"You know - I have a dollar. I need two fifties to make a phone call."

"Fifties??"

He takes my dollar note and shoves four quarters into my hands and gets on with serving other people.

My flight to NY proceeds as planned.

The end.

Moral of Story: If you're asking for a particular currency denomination, make sure it's last circulation was not in the 1970s.