A slice of life

One of the minor joys of living in a city like New York is all the different people you come across. Each person has his or her own story, a tale to tell. Everyone has someplace they're going.

Like the nice lady I saw sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park this morning.

She was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette with a determined air about her. Within reach was an open can of Red Bull. So clearly, she felt the need to ingest a quantity of stimulants sufficient to get Diamond Jim Brady up and at 'em again, calling for malpeques and ale. Why? I can't say for sure.

I do, however, have a few guesses:

• She has been awake for six and a half days, and needs to make it 12 more hours to win a bet with her know-it-all older sister, Lisa.
• There's yet another a goddamned soldering prodigy she has to compete with down at the hummingbird-feeder factory.
  
• Or maybe she has to fill in for resourceful, yet alcoholic friend, Cheryl, who leverages her DTs into a sidelight as Jitters, the Friendly Clown. But fucking Cheryl's on the sauce again and if she misses this gig, she'll have to move back onto the couch.
  
• Maybe Parliament-and-sugar-free-Red-Bull lady is a TA for some English professor who has scheduled guest speaker Chris Tucker to participate in a poetry slam for a class he's teaching at the New School entitled "Everyday Bards: Poetry found in Quotidian Life." And she'll be damned if she gets shown up by fucking Ruby Rod.
• It's possible that she told her good friend Kelly Ripa she'd join her for first annual "Pogo 'Round the Park" charity bounce-a-thon, but then remembered what a fucking disaster that would be.
• It could be Rimsky-Korsakov Day at her Pilates studio and she doesn't want to lose her status as the hardest worker in the eyes of Horst, the instructor with the chiseled arms and smoldering Teutonic eyes who is always just a touch more hands-on than he needs to be.

Carol Jantsch -- a.k.a. the Mike Hart of the music world -- will spot you a trough of Mountain Dew and still do anything you can do, only faster. And better. Especially if it involves playing Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous piece -- on the fucking tuba -- while wearing a bumblebee costume. Now BUZZ, bitches! BUZZ!