let's trade places for a week and see how you feel about that statement.

this morning, on the subway ride in, i'm standing up holding on to one of the poles. there's a guy sitting down next to me. he seems a little out of it, but i figure he's just tired and undercaffeinated on a weekday morning.

like me.

fifteen minutes into the train ride, he leans over to the woman sitting next to him and says:

hold my seat, would you? i gotta go pee.

she looks at him and sort of gives him a combination shake and nod of her head. not wanting to piss him off, i guess, by saying no, and not wanting to commit to holding this guy's seat on a crowded train.

now, he declares:

"just hold my seat for a few minutes while i go pee."

again, she says nothing. just looks at him through her fluttering eyelashes, playing dumb.

i'm sorry, i'm a woodnymph from the Forest of Everlasting, i don't speak human. where do the fairies live in this city?

at this point, he gets up, and i think i'm being helpful by saying to this guy, who must be an out-of-towner:

"hey, there aren't bathrooms on the subway trains."

"i knooooow..."

and now i know from the stench, that this guy is drunk.

"i need you guys to hold my seat while i go pee in the space between the trains."

right.

and i giggle to myself, because it was just last night that my friend L from sweet, green, magnolia-sprinkled valdosta, georgia said to me via Facebook chat, "your life seems so glamorous in NYC!"

indeed.