correspondence

dear two young foreign students trying to get on the g train at the classon ave. stop on friday evening,

i'm sorry. but it had been a long trip home from queens....

i doubt that either of you have kids (though, who knows), so you've probably never had to endure an hour on public transportation with an overtired baby. it started off okay, but by the time we got on the g train—after the n train and the 7 train—the baby had had it. every time the train came to a stop and the doors opened and then the doors closed and we were still on the train, he'd get a little bit more upset. have you ever tried balancing a baby on your hip while trying to keep a folded-up stroller from falling over and your diaper bag from sliding off the seat on a moving subway train? i'll tell you this now: it's not easy. and you know what makes it worse? when you try to sit down and the baby tells you "no, absolutely not, you must stand", and then when you go to stand up again you whack your child's head into the metal pole over the seat. this leads to the kind of loud wailing that i didn't really know my baby had in him.

so you see, by the time i got to the classon ave. stop, where we get off, i had reached my limit.

but i do feel bad. i mean, maybe before coming here you heard all the stereotypes about how new yorkers are all rude and pushy, and here i am totally perpetuating that myth. and it's not true! most of us are very nice and polite. most of the time, i'm pretty freaking polite. you just caught me at a bad moment.

all of that said, however...there is a lesson you should take from this little incident: when getting on to a subway car, you let the people on the train off first. not that i'm not at fault too! i absolutely deserved whatever nasty thing i overheard you say about me in polish/czechoslovakian/what have you. i'm just saying, this whole thing could also have been avoided if you had been more familiar with subway ettiquette.

sincerely,
the harried woman with the baby who snarled "get the hell out of my way" at you and then (unintentionally!) nearly decapitated you with her folded-up stroller




dear wile,

snookums. sweetie baby. you know mama loves you more than life itself. i mean that. i would gladly throw myself in front of an oncoming train for you. but mama also needs to get out of the house sometimes without you.

you know how we have dance parties in the living room? to the fun loud music with the singing that sounds kind of like talking and the kickin' bass lines? i love those dance parties. i love how you laugh like a maniac when i twirl you around, and how you kick your legs and beat the air with your arms. but you see, before you were born, mama used to go out and have dance parties with her girlfriends. it was one of her favorite things to do. and i miss it. so sometimes i need to go out and dance without you, and you need to hang with dad.

and i need you to be okay with that, because it kind of puts a damper on mama's evening when she checks her phone between this is how we do and i've got a crush on you, at 1:35am, and finds a text message that reads "he's been awake since 11:45".

xxxooo,
mama




dear michael,

i wish i could have been there yesterday to say goodbye.

the greatest game i've ever attended was the game in 99 against the braves when you guys scored 10 runs in the 8th inning to beat the braves 11-8, and it was your screaming home run to the retired numbers in left that put us in the lead. some people have given you shit for not being as much of a "team leader" as they think you should have been. but when you hit that home run you came around first and pumped your fist and it was so evident that you were just as excited as everyone in the stands, that you were as invested in this team as we all were—and that's all i need to know.

thank you for everything. i hope you go on to a glorious semi-retirement as a d.h.

let's go mets,
the daughter of the woman who got your autograph in the pineapple discount beverage center in jensen beach florida 5 years ago.

ps - you should have slugged clemens.