Saturday, I accompanied babies A + B to Muji by Union Square to locate a few pens for school. Afterwards, we used the bathroom at Pottery Barn across the street. Baby A and I were sitting on a large comfy sofa, talking about whether or not we could picture this thing in the tv room, imagining how many of our family members could fit on it. A saleswoman came over to us, and said:
"Please let me know if you have any questions about this sectional."
"No questions." I flashed a big grin. I'm just waiting for my daughter who's in the bathroom. Besides, we were just debating if this is something we'd like to put in our house."
"Oh - that is much more than just a debate! Do you have 8 feet of wall?"I looked closely at the woman's face for hints of what she might actually mean by such a stupid-ass ingress into a conversation.
"Uh, yeah. Probably a lot more than that. That's definitely not an issue."She seemed to be in disbelief that I might live in a house large enough to accommodate a sofa of this magnitude.
"Where would this be going may I ask?"
"Oh... probably up on the second floor of our house."
"I was asking about the wall length because this sofa is VERY large, and actually needs a little extra room on both of the ends to be placed into a room. Many people don't have that space."
"I'm positive this could fit inside our house."Just then, baby B returned from the bathroom, and the three of us left the store. I explained to my daughters that when I was a boy, I would daydream of living in a store like that. Of settling into a good hiding spot just before closing time, waiting for the employees to leave, then coming out at night to jump around on the furniture.
Breads Bakery
Five minutes after our Pottery Barn bathroom break, as we entered the Union Square farmer's market, I was overcome with hunger. So I convinced the girls to turn down 16th street to hop into Breads Bakery. I had an an egg sandwich + gravlax on toast (no coffee, woodja believe?), then headed back to Union Square to go into Staples to look for additional school supplies. Below is a list of what we were looking for.- Musical notation paper
- 1 loose leaf notebook
- 1 small binder
- 1 pack of 5 binder insert separators
- 1 pack of very small post-its
Cash transactions only - at Staples in the year 2019
We got everything on the list except for the music paper. I had never heard of such a requirement, but quietly accepted it. The total came to just under $26, and as we waited our turn to pay at the head of a line of parents and civilians, the manager announced:
"Sorry folks - cash only. We can't do credit card transactions - the machine is down."There was the sound of grumbling behind me. One pair of older guys dressed in khakis and polo shirts immediately jumped out of line and headed for the exit. The voice of Joe Corallo from Boston, MA immediately sounded off in my head with the words Go get your fuckin' supah-visah. I didn't repeat the words, but I did reassure Norene that I had plenty of money.
Coffee Pods
After we exited Staples, I split off from my family on foot. I walked approximately 3,800 steps to the Nespresso Store at the corner of Prince and Mercer in SOHO where I picked up 8 sleeves of Ristretto pods. The woman at the register threw in a free sleeve of something with a whimsical Italian name, along with a much shorter sampler pack of stuff that looked like it was in the Nespresso version of "beta".A Haircut with Vlad (aka: "Johnny") on Park Place & Church
I called Ray's Barbershop to ask if Johnny was working. Yeah. Johnny's here right now. With my cute little Nespresso bag, I walked another mile. I crossed over Canal via Mercer, then headed along Church. I saw Johnny outside with 2 other barbers, smoking by the plate glass. I gave him a head nod, and went inside. When I sat in the chair, I instructed him to cut my hair like last time - which was at least a month earlier. During the cut, we exchanged maybe 3 lines of chitchat. This was about average for a 7 minute cut... 2 sentences every 3 minutes. I liked this about Johnny. When it was done, I went to the register to pay, received my change, and walked back to Johnny to hand him the usual tip of $12. I had been coming to him on and off for a year, and thought it was time to level up our relationship, so just asked him point blank.
"Hey Johnny, what's the best way to reach you? A couple times, I dropped by, but you weren't in."
"Just get my number from Peter." This is what Johnny always says.
"I don't think that number works man. Or maybe Peter gave me the wrong one."
"Ok - you take it now -- "Bingo. It took a year, but I finally got Johnny's personal cell phone number.
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