Tonight I had two donuts and a beer for dinner. That might not surprise you if you know me very well, but it's actually a pretty great story.
So I got out of work late because I stayed behind listening to a co-worker's stories of Republican Conventions from ages past -- I won't go into details, but it's good stuff, the GOP actually can be fun at times, apparently -- and then I went to H&M where I got a great dress with pictures of zebras all over it, because I'm an adult, and that means I can do what I want, which at this point in my life means dressing like a little kid.
Anyways, all I'd eaten by the time I headed home (about 8:45, I think) was a whole wheat bagel with Tofutti cream cheese, a bag of Cool Ranch Soy Crisps, and three granola bars. So I stumbled down into the subway a little delirious, I think, from a combination of exhaustion and the early stages of starvation.
And, no surprise, I got on the wrong train.
I got on at 34th Street. I usually get off at 110th street, when I manage to ride the subway correctly. This train blasted past 110th and didn't stop until 126th. I was so tired that as the train soared past my stop, I didn't even realize it -- I just thought, Oh, that's my subway stop, huh, cool -- until the train finally screeched to a halt 16 blocks uptown of where I needed to be.
Miserably, I dragged my increasingly heavy purse off the train and waited for the next one. It finally came, so I clambered on and found a seat. And then that train also soared past 110th.
I waved a little as my stop passed, got off at 59th, and stumbled over to the side of the track helpfully labelled "Uptown" and got on the next train that came, fingers crossed. At that point, I didn't really care where the train was going because I'd made the executive decision that if it was the wrong one, I'd just sleep in the subway.
It was the right train, and by no virtue of my own, I flopped out at 110th, starving. There was only one thing I wanted: canned palace paneer from Organic Forever, the hippie grocery two blocks from my place. Naturally, it was closed, but its next door neighbor, America Meat and Grocery, was still open. This might surprise you, but they didn't have any tasty vegetarian options (the closest thing they had to a vegetarian entree was Beef-a-roni, no thank you), so I wandered down to DELI GROCERY, down the block.
The only thing there that looked good was beer, and I already had beer at home. So I moved on.
At 9:58, I finally stumbled into Dunkin' Donuts, set to close in two minutes.
"Wow, I'm so glad you're open! Hah! Hah!" I said to the kindly gentleman behind the counter, and proceeded to launch into my usual string of questions at Dunkin Donuts: "So do you have any whole wheat bagels left? And also with the veggie egg white sandwich, are the veggies like suspended in the egg, or do you guys have veggie meat?"
"Oh no. We have no eggs. We have only donuts," he said.
I almost fainted right there.
"Oh."
"You want a donut?"
"Oh. Umm."
I gazed at the wall of donuts, all the colors swirling together, and finally decided that this was a sign. At that point, I had two choices: settle for Dunkin', or walk another five blocks to Best Yet Grocery, which may or may not have been open, and hope they had something tastier than Beef-a-roni or Chocolate Sprinkles.
Not happening.
"Yeah, can I get a chocolate with sprinkles, please," I said.
"You want chocolate? I give you strawberry too."
So there's a happy ending. I almost died in the subway, I almost passed out on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and I might die of malnutrition, but I got a free donut! And there's still beer in the fridge.
In retrospect, I don't think that's as good of a story as I thought it was. But I'm too tired to re-read it to check. Instead, here's a link to a song we listened to a lot freshman year that's really relevant to my life right now:
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