The Husband Next Door

My neighbor asked me to marry him the other day.

Just to give some background, he is a middle-aged man standing a few inches below my eye-level and lives in the basement of the brownstone next door to mine.

I often find him in my front yard raking the leaves or shoveling my snow (which is a little beyond the normal neighborly civil duties, but who would complain about that?). In the warmer summer days he spends an exceptional amount of time outdoors cat-calling (he literally meows/purrs/both), which I assume is his friendly way of saying "hello."

Though all my housemates have equally as frequent encounters with the neighbor, none of us ever managed to find out his name. He's been calling all of us "Queen" for years (we assume because he doesn't know who is who) and we have begun using the same name when referring to him. Being that he is topic of so many discussions, we have all gotten so comfortable with calling him "Queen" that there have been numerous occasions when we have almost called it to his face.

Aside from the typical cat-calling/meowing, he'll often stop me on my way home for a quick chat which usually go something like this:

Queen: Hi, my queen! How are you?
Me: A little tired, how are you?
Queen: I'm better now that I see you! Would you like a massage?
Me: Oh no thank you.
Queen: Are you sure? I can come in your house and give you a massage.
Me: No no, I don't think that will be necessary. But I appreciate the gesture. Gottarunbye.

We've come to the conclusion that he is the creepiest person we know but you can't not love him.

So the other day as I was leaving the house, I got a phone call from a lady name Laura asking if I was still interested in donating my kidney just as I bumped into Queen waiting for me on the sidewalk. He interrupted my kidney donation conversation with a "Can I ask you a question?"

It seemed urgent and important (though now that I think about it, so was my confused conversation with a stranger requesting my kidney that I had completely forgotten I had ever signed up to donate). But being that I was no longer as interested in donating my organs as I apparently had been a few years back, I used this as an excuse to quickly end my call with Laura. "Can you email me this information and I'll think about it?" I asked Laura as Queen patiently waited for his turn to speak.

"Sorry about that. What was your question?"

"Oh. I just wanted to ask you if you would marry me?"

He was as serious as one should be when asking someone to marry them. He had great eye contact but no ring.

This was right about when I started to panic and wished I was still on the phone with the lady who wanted my kidney.

I was not prepared for this and I couldn't come up with a rejection that wouldn't insult him. I stumbled over my words, started mumbling something about marriage not being my thing and then ran. And as I power walked away from him, he kept yelling down the block, "I think it's a really good idea!"

I'm usually better with my responses but I believe the kidney lady threw me off my game. It was too much fluster for me to handle on a Sunday afternoon on my way to brunch.

Next week I'm ordering delivery.

Uber Kidnap

With a new job in the middle of nowhere-Brooklyn comes a new necessary mode of transportation. In this case, that mode of transport would be in the form of daily Ubers. (Because I refuse to take a train to a bus to then walk half a mile to get to work and because my work loves me enough to compensate me for my high maintenance demands).

For those of you who don't know what Uber is, you either live in the suburbs where everyone needs their own car to survive or you live in a 3rd World Country.

But for those of us living within the 5 Boroughs of New York City, Uber is our other half, our soulmate, our best friend.

With the push of a button he picks you up, drops you off and charges everything directly to your credit card. It's the the best for when you have no cash and your flight leaves in an hour and half or when you go for a run without your wallet and then realize you're too lazy to walk home.

Once your Uber is requested, you are assigned a car within a few seconds. And I, like most eager people, watch the little car icon as it drives through the map approaching your pick up location.

You even get a head-shot photo of your driver (so there are no surprises) and the type of car that awaits you.

So then on a random Tuesday at 5pm I went through my usual routine and called for my Uber chauffeur. I glanced over at the soon-arriving vehicle, read that it would be a Toyota Rav-4 and I continued finishing up my work before he would arrive.

As I walked out of the office, I approached the Rav-4 parked right outside. Something felt a little weird about the pick up so as I opened the back door I asked the confused looking driver if he was in fact my Uber. But nope. He wasn't. He was just a confused gentleman who should've been way more alarmed by the fact that a strange female was entering his vehicle.

Turns out my actual non-kidnapper Uber ride was the Rav-4 across the street. He also had a difficult time concealing his smirk as he most likely recalled watching me as I walked into the wrong car before realizing my error. He didn't think that maybe he should have called or sent a warning text like "Hey Maam, That's not your Uber. The car you are entering may actually kidnap you and leave you in a field instead of delivering you to your destination safely."

But no. There was no call or text of that sort. He just watched in amusement as he witnessed a potential kidnapping of an innocent Uber rider.

This is how people get kidnapped in 2015. By willingly walking into vehicles they think are their Ubers. Bribing with candy is so 2010.

Spreading Christmas Cheer One Doughnut At A Time

Christmas is the most over-hyped holiday of all time. Macy's starts playing "Jingle Bells" in October, there's a Santa takeover in every mall across America, clothing sales are shoved down your face, the lights, the trees, Ellen's 10-Day-Giveaway... It's this HUGE lead up to one day. 

And although I do not celebrate Christmas, I do enjoy the Christmas spirit. It the only time of year when everyone seems so cheerful. Neighbors wave to one another, strangers become uncomfortably friendly, the grocery clerk will even sneak in half a smile. It's hard to not be happy when everyone around you is so happy.

This past Christmas Eve, while on a 7-11 run, a friend and I noticed all the policemen and policewomen that were on duty instead of being home with their families. And with all the cop-hate in the news lately, we felt that we wanted to do something to show our appreciation. 

And what better way to show that appreciation than with two dozen doughnuts?

We had to make numerous stops because we kept clearing out every Dunkin Donuts (and there were only so many of them open at 2am on Christmas Eve.) But five Dunkins, 24 Christmas-decorated doughnuts, and 45 minutes later, we rocked up to our local 71st Precinct.

Photo Courtesy of Google Images

When people say that cops don't actually like doughnuts as much as everyone thinks they do, they're lying. Not only do they like them but they were on first-name basis with every variety of doughnut that Dunkin Donuts sells. 

I'm not going to tell you that they weren't surprised/confused/suspicious of us (because they were. Including the one lady standing there in handcuffs). But who's going to refuse a girl holding two large boxes of free doughnuts? 

I may not celebrate Christmas, but I'm all for spreading a little cheer. Especially to those in bullet-proof vests, protecting and serving instead of being with their own families. A few doughnuts were my small way of saying "Thank you."