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Manhattan is simply a horrible place to work and live. If you’re from a middle-of-nowhere city in a middle-of-nowhere state, there’s a better-than-average chance your dream is to live and work in Manhattan.
(tosh,tosh.o,watch tosh.0,comedy central tosh.0,comedy central,daniel tosh,tosh.0 online,tosh.0 season 3)
Oh sure, I can picture you sitting at your farmhouse’s window, looking beyond the chickens and goats kicking up dirt as they try to kill and/or have sex with each other, sighing longingly about becoming Michael J. Fox in The Secret To My Success. I can assure you that you are better off milking cows or husking corn or whatever it is people who aren’t from this area do. Why?
Because there are too many people in this city, and none of them have any idea how to walk from place to place.
It’s a nightmare. As if your highly stressful job for little or no money that could be taken away from you at a moment’s notice because idiots who live on farms and daydream about 1980s movies no one watched are eager to take your miserable job wasn’t enough. When you leave work, you are dropped into the middle of an idiot parade starring about 4 million people who have no idea how to walk in a crowded city.
I have grown tired of walking in this city, but I have decided to make one final desperate plea to the people of Manhattan, those who work and live here and those who visit here and think the ESPN Zone in Times Square is the same thing as Stonehenge. I demand you read this carefully because if you don’t take this advice seriously, you’re going to start reading about these random rage killings perpretrated by a bald, yet strangely young-looking and handsome, man who was muttering about walking.
1. So you’re a large group of people, huh?
There’s Cooter, head of the McRoberts household in beautiful Moonshine, Georgia. Cooter and his wife Marjorie and two adorable kids, Jim-Bob, 7, and Shelley-Lou, 11, are hopping in the pickup truck to spend a wonderful weekend in the so-called greatest city in the world.
Side note, New York has an inferiority complex like you would not believe. It’s constantly referred to as the greatest city in the world despite evidence to the contrary. There’s like 10,000 pizza places that refer to themselves as “famous.” It all reeks of desperation. No one ever refers to Michael Jordan as “The world’s greatest basketball player, Famous Michael Jordan.”
But now that our Georgia family of four has parked their truck, they are ready to head out and soak in the sights of Manhattan.
Not far off, four guys have just wrapped up with a deposition and are ready to go have lunch and high-five each other all the way to their favorite restaurant because they just took a huge step toward bankrupting a small business that wasn’t doing anything wrong. Douchey, Scummy, Prickles and Tad are just loving life as they step off the elevator in their office building and enter their lobby.
And here you are, the valiant entry-level employee who spent the morning trying to find affordable cat clothing online for your boss because winter is coming and she’s afraid Kat Winslet will be chilly when they’re watching a re-enactment of last week’s episode of Glee in Central Park. You consider killing yourself because your boss wants you to watch the first six Harry Potter movies consecutively this weekend so you too can see how the movies contain a secret message to dogs to kill her cat, but you instead decide to spend your 30-minute lunch at a nearby deli.
Unfortunately for you, you step out of your office and are immediately trapped by a family of four who are, for a reason unknown to scientists everywhere, walking side-by-side-by-side-by-side and looking up at buildings that possess no historical quality whatsoever. You try walking around to the right, but Marjorie is taking a photograph of a Europa. You try walking around to the left, but Jim-Bob is spazzing out because some weird creep is dressed in an Elmo costume. You can’t get around them.
You give up and cross the street, but you’re once again stuck, this time behind Douchey, Scummy, Prickles and Tad. Douchey is telling Scummy how he nailed Prickles’ secretary last night, causing Tad to chest-bump with Douchey. Scummy is re-enacting his dance moves he used at a club during the previous weekend that netted him a beautiful blond that turned out to be a really attractive transvestite. Douchey and Prickles laugh, but give each other a silent wink because they’ve been sleeping together since they joined the law firm.
All the while, you can’t get around them because they are walking four across like they’re the stars of Entourage.
The example shows that tourists and long-time frequenters of Manhattan share a common problem. They don’t understand that in a crowded city with narrow sidewalks, walking four across is just not possible or acceptable. You are not — I repeat, NOT — a member of the George Washington’s army marching against the British during the Revolutionary War. You are not advancing on a fort. Pair off, jackasses. No one can get around you. There are people coming in the other direction too.
It’s helpful to think of walking in Manhattan like driving. If you were on a two-lane highway that had traffic going in both directions, you would never see cars doing the same speed driving side-by-side because one car would be destroyed by oncoming traffic. Personally, I think you should be allowed to put your shoulder into any of these people if they don’t make an effort to get out of the way. If you’re behind them, a musket to the back of the skull will get the message across.
If those punishments come across as harsh, good. Remember: If this sounds crazy, just remember I’m not even close to the craziest person in Manhattan.
2. The rules of escalators
I have harped on this before, but the message doesn’t seem to be getting across. Why? Because people are stupid. So I’m going to slow it down for the mouth breathers. Ready? OK.
The.
Left.
Side.
Of.
The.
Escalator.
Is.
For.
People.
Who.
Wish.
To.
Walk.
Up.
Or.
Down.
The.
Escalator.
Picture a highway. What’s the left lane for? People who want to go fast. People who actually have somewhere to be. And in New York City, everyone has to be somewhere really quickly. If you’re not in a rush, that’s why the right side of the escalator exists. It’s for you to stand there and ponder why you are on a subway escalator at 8:55 in the morning yet have no reason to hustle.
On an average-sized escalator, walking it saves you about 30 seconds. If you’re walking up or down the escalator at the Columbus Circle subway stop, I’m pretty sure you save 2-to-3 years of your life by walking. Area 51 isn’t as deep underground as that train station. It’s insane. Yet there are some people who consciously choose to stand still on the left side of that escalator, forcing me to wait till we get to the top before I grab them by the back of the neck and hurl them down the middle of the escalators.
You’re probably saying, “Dave, what about people who have disabilities?” My thoughtful response is, “So?” For one, people with disabilities always talk about wanting to be treated equally, and by grabbing a disabled person who is on the left side of the escalator and chucking him or her down 50 feet of moving stairs, I am doing a lot for people in search of equal rights.
Honestly, the only disability that’s acceptable in this situation is dyslexia. Maybe the guy thinks he’s on the left side of the escalator and everyone else is the jerk. So you’re right. I will ask the stationary person who is clogging the lane if he or she is dyslexic. If the answer is no, a long and painful tumble down some stairs is in their future.
3. The obvious one — Texting While Walking
I think this is the equivalent of, “What’s the deal with airplane peanuts?” But sometimes stating the obvious is necessary. If I don’t mention my desire to make out (and maybe more!) with Heidi Klum once a week, how will she ever know? Yeah, I thought that would make sense.
It’s 5:07. You *JUST* left your office. What could you possibly be reading right now that you couldn’t have read seven minutes ago? Unlike you, our entry-level employee just left work and has no desire to dip back into it after office hours. Besides, the video store is closing soon and the guy said there was only one more copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Dragons left. It doesn’t matter what time it is, people are in a rush.
But no, there’s Douchey checking a text from his buddy who wants to go crush some PBRs and watch the Monday Night Football game. There’s Scummy sending an e-mail to his transvestite friend who won’t call him back. There’s Cooter double-checking that the Georgia-Georgia Tech game starts at 3:30 and trying to figure out if Georgia and New York are in the same time zone.
Douchey stops in his tracks to type his text. Scummy is like a drunk 19-year-old swaying side to side during a field sobriety test. And Cooter is laying down licking his Blackberry, not understanding why it doesn’t taste anything like a fruit.
I am a firm believer that texting and driving should be illegal everywhere. But I also believe texting and walking should require you to pass a test of some sort. There are people who just can’t handle the complicated task of typing with their thumbs and walking. And really, would it kill you to wait to get home to check your e-mail? Is that e-mail with sweet offers on vintage Transformers on e-Bay not going to be there in an hour? No, it will be there. It can wait.
I do concede the point that some people do have the ability to both operate a phone and walk at the same time. I’d say the number of those people exceeds the people who can’t. But if you find people are flying past you on the street and burying their shoulders into your back as you watch a video of a baby farting in a bathtub on your phone, stop. You suck at walking and using your phone. Don’t do it anymore.
You’re raising the anger level in the city to a Ghostbusters 2 level and I’m afraid you don’t want me covering you in happy goop in order to save Manhattan.
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