Some final thoughts...

Well, I'm sure I'll have a few other final thoughts about good ol' NYC, but here it one that occurred to me yesterday. I was driving Chels back to UNH and had a lovely encounter with a tollbooth attendant in New Hampshire. Charley was on my lap with his nose out the window when I pulled up to the booth. The attendant (who looked strikingly like every father of every person I went to high school with) immediately told me I was late. Alarmed, I told him that it was probably true. He apologized for just having run out of treats for my dog, laughed and petted Charley before considering to take the money I was waving at him. Eight hours later as I pulled up to the toll for the Triboro Bridge outside of Manhattan, I noticed that the attendant there was an armed police officer who didn't so much as look at me as I handed him his five dollar fee. People are nicer outside of NYC. But I don't blame them. The officer was wearing a flak jacket. He was obviously scared of the people he might meet while on the job. Maybe people aren't as nice because they know they have to be on the defense all the time. It's like when you see someone talking to themselves on the sidewalk. I don't judge them anymore. In a city where you live on top of four other families and beside two more, you soon lose the ability to care about whether or not people can hear what you have to say to yourself. I bet that nice NH attendant talked to himself in his truck on his way home. I can't wait to be back in a place where I can do all that in the privacy of my own car/home/yard and thus have the energy to smile at the dogs and people who drive past me everyday.
-your friendly neighborhood storyteller,
Jared