I Trim Them

I was out tonight, in Williamsburg, which means that unless I'm (1) with someone who will coddle me, (2) had an atrocious amount if whiskey, or (3) forgotten to wear shoes, I take the G train home. I didn't exactly think about the fact that I could take the G train all the way home until I read the party invitation my roommate sent to our friends a few weeks ago. She told everyone to come the ways I would have told them, and then she mentioned that they could get off at the Smith & 9th Street G stop, too.

No eff-ing kidding, I thought to myself, but only to myself because if I'd thought it to anyone else they would have wondered what my huge lazy problem with walking five extra blocks was, anyway. And, you know, they would have been right. Because I love walking. I also, as conscientious readers may recall, love the feeling of fear.

Lucky for me, fear is right up there on the list of feelings one might have right after a bus pulls away and she finds herself standing at the midpoint of a deserted 24-hour "super"market and an equally empty 24-hour "hard"ware store.

(I found out those are called scare quotes. How scared are you? My teeth are chattering).

But, I mean, whatever. I walked. To the potential chagrin of my mother, father, boss and maybe even my Madeleine, I took a short cut across the aforementioned hardware store's parking lot.

(The Pythagorean Therom is one of my favorites and I like it even when it's misapplied).

Everything was going fine. I'd looked butch enough to be ignored by the sinister-as-a-dodge-neon-can-be Dodge Neon patrolling the parking lot, and I had 2nd Avenue in my sights. Then: I jumped. Almost literally. There was a massive, fat, abused looking Great Dane reclining below the loading docks opposite the store's lumber yard!

I'd eaten dinner, mind you, only hours before, and if ever a dog could smell the lingering aroma of soy protein it was this one.

I tried to keep my fear pheromones (fearomones?) in check while I walked by, but I just knew the dog could smell me. Truth is, with Tom's of Maine deodorant, you probably could have, too.

But, okay. The point is, none of my inside chemicals outed me to the dog as someone who decidedly didn't belong near any sort of hardware store at midnight on a Tuesday. And I was pretty psyched about that, you know? Like, maybe if the dog didn't notice me the kids playing basketball at the courts a couple blocks west of my house thought I blended in, too? And the ladies at the Wyckoff projects pool really did think that young Max was my son and not a rich whitey with a full time babysitter?

My delusional ego keeps telling me that this is true. It keeps telling me that my pheromones identify me as Gowanus, through and through. (As long as they don't make me G-Slope. Shudder). Another reason I know this? As I was leaving the parking lot, I saw a young man wearing a boldly striped Greg Brady-esque ski jacket, squinting through his barber shop-picketing bangs and pushing a rattling old-lady cart in my direction.

I squinted back, but not through my bangs because I Trim Them, and I kept walking. A few seconds later, though, I heard Mr. Dane. Man, he was putting up a fuss. Either he didn't like the squeaking of the shopping cart or he was sounding the throaty 2nd Avenue Gentrification Alarm.