500 words of fury

There is a feature in the Times’s new Metropolitan section where you can send in a 500-word rant about something that bothers you, and, if you’re as lucky as this week’s French-teacher winner, they publish it for all to see. I’m obviously sending something in, but am having trouble narrowing it down. Leave your vote – or suggestion! – in the comments. (I will at some point Google those blog-quiz things and put one of those in too, I hope.)

-The near-impossibility of renting an apartment within your price range if you do not work in finance. This would be a painful rant involving questions of guarantors, realtors, and surely other ‘tors as well.

-The inescapable presence of The Hott. Yesterday, for instance, I’m on the subway platform with Jo, and we see this man with a very small bulldog on a leash apologize to a woman and leave the station, rather than, say, waiting for the train like a normal person. But the man seemed, aside from the MTA-violating lap-dog-on-leash, quite normal. At which point another person remarked to us, bemused, “That was strange.” Apparently – as I had, I’ll be honest, suspected – the man had followed this woman into the station to ask her out, and been rebuffed. The woman was just your usual 20-year-old Slavic model with no thigh bulge – or, I almost want to say, no thighs, except that technically her calves attached to something – whatsoever. She did not seem at all surprised that a man who did not seem like a lunatic had spent $2.25 (or not, if he had an Unlimited Metrocard, as Jo and I of course discussed) to ask her out. If this happened to me… I can’t even say what I would do, because it’s unimaginable. Basically I don’t think I’d be pleased, but, moot point.

-French tourists. This would address all overly-elegant foreigners here for one reason and one reason only: sneakers that go for 80 euros cost $30 here. Crips aren’t the only ones who go wild for athletic footwear. The Europeans might look sophisticated to us, what with their scarves and fluency in languages other than English, but don’t be fooled: 99% of the time, they’re here for the Nike pas cher.

-The sardine-tin arrangement this city expects us to refer to as “restaurant tables.” This one’s no good, because it’s just one complaint: restaurant tables are too close together to make dining out a pleasant experience. And the answer’s too easy: if you can’t afford the top 1% where this is not the case, don’t eat out. And, for the most part, I don’t. Problem solved.

-The influence of “Sex and the City” on women’s self-presentation and, alas, self-conception. This includes tourists and locals alike. Any time you see a group of three or more overly-made-up adult women walking in a row, with some proximity to cupcakes, this is what you’re witnessing. That said, because I’m pro-cupcake, I fear this rant would lack the necessary vitriol.