The Usual
I think the office cleaning lady has become a caretaker to my office plant.
It started several days back when I came in one morning and noticed that the plant had been trimmed back and all the brown leaves removed. The plant in question is what my Nana used to call a “prayer plant”. I don’t know much else about it other than somebody at my office gave me a cutting over ten years ago and I still have the thing. All I do is water it once a week, shove a plant spike in the soil or toss some coffee grounds in the pot occasionally and put it in a window behind a cubicle in my department that overlooks Times Square so it can get some natural light. I have an inside office so it doesn’t get any during the week.
So the other day I come in and notice that parts of the plant have been propped up. With pencils. From MY pencil cup. These cleaning ladies are bold. For a group of people that typically knock papers, my keyboard and my mouse all over my desk when they wipe it off at night they sure are sensitive about this plant.
This is the kind of anonymous or semi-anonymous interaction that happens all the time in urban life. If you think about it too much you might get a little paranoid.
Lately I’ve been going to the same coffee cart every morning. It’s a habit I try to avoid since it starts to bother me when they see you coming and start throwing together your “usual” assuming that yes, you are here to pick up your large with milk and 2 sugars and a lightly buttered everything bagel. Actually, no need to specify “lightly buttered” at the coffee cart since NYC coffee carts as a rule call a bagel “buttered” if it occupies the same shelf that a stick of butter once occupied during the Lindsay administration. Paradoxically, bagels with cream cheese generally come with a slab of cream cheese roughly the thickness of your average Stage Deli triple decker.
(For readers not from New York, that means “it’s really thick”.)
But this coffee guy see, he’s different. He asks before he starts putting together my order. And I like that. Sometimes I want an onion bagel if they have them. Or if my stomach is uneasy for some reason, I go with a poppy or plain bagel. I think I’ll keep going to him because he asks, puts my order together and we wish each other a good day as I hand him the money. Nice and easy, no fuss, muss, stress or wasted breath. Because the other thing that makes me batty is when the coffee cart guy wants to make small talk. Typically in the morning I’m coming off a bus nap if I’m at a coffee cart and the last thing I want to do is shoot the breeze about the weather, the Super Bowl, the Yankees or whatever. As soon as Coffee Cart Guy feels comfortable enough to talk about the weather, I find another guy. I hope this one doesn’t reach that stage because he’s really convenient.
The worst case of assumption I ever had happened at a deli up the block from my office. I would go in there roughly 3 times a week in the days before I started bringing lunch from home most days. Many times I would get the grilled chicken cutlet with Swiss cheese melted under the broiler with a small amount of onion and honey mustard. There was (and actually still is) one hot sandwich guy who would try to make that for me every single time. One time, in fact (and I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favor) he made the sandwich without ever even talking to me and handed it to me when my turn in line came up. Only problem was their roast beef looked particularly rare and nice that day and I wanted that. But, like a dummy I took what he gave me and left…and didn’t set foot in the place for lunch again for two months. By then, his memory had re-set and henceforth I have never ordered the same sandwich on consecutive visits lest they begin to think that is my new “usual”.
Urban life is fraught with peril, isn’t it? All these invisible or barely-noticed hands touching your life. It keeps you on your toes though. Makes me avoid the trap of the old “usual”. I wonder what the cleaning lady does when I move the plant on the weekend. Maybe that explains the flipped-over-mouse and askew keyboard on Monday mornings. Some people need the usual.
It started several days back when I came in one morning and noticed that the plant had been trimmed back and all the brown leaves removed. The plant in question is what my Nana used to call a “prayer plant”. I don’t know much else about it other than somebody at my office gave me a cutting over ten years ago and I still have the thing. All I do is water it once a week, shove a plant spike in the soil or toss some coffee grounds in the pot occasionally and put it in a window behind a cubicle in my department that overlooks Times Square so it can get some natural light. I have an inside office so it doesn’t get any during the week.
So the other day I come in and notice that parts of the plant have been propped up. With pencils. From MY pencil cup. These cleaning ladies are bold. For a group of people that typically knock papers, my keyboard and my mouse all over my desk when they wipe it off at night they sure are sensitive about this plant.
This is the kind of anonymous or semi-anonymous interaction that happens all the time in urban life. If you think about it too much you might get a little paranoid.
Lately I’ve been going to the same coffee cart every morning. It’s a habit I try to avoid since it starts to bother me when they see you coming and start throwing together your “usual” assuming that yes, you are here to pick up your large with milk and 2 sugars and a lightly buttered everything bagel. Actually, no need to specify “lightly buttered” at the coffee cart since NYC coffee carts as a rule call a bagel “buttered” if it occupies the same shelf that a stick of butter once occupied during the Lindsay administration. Paradoxically, bagels with cream cheese generally come with a slab of cream cheese roughly the thickness of your average Stage Deli triple decker.
(For readers not from New York, that means “it’s really thick”.)
But this coffee guy see, he’s different. He asks before he starts putting together my order. And I like that. Sometimes I want an onion bagel if they have them. Or if my stomach is uneasy for some reason, I go with a poppy or plain bagel. I think I’ll keep going to him because he asks, puts my order together and we wish each other a good day as I hand him the money. Nice and easy, no fuss, muss, stress or wasted breath. Because the other thing that makes me batty is when the coffee cart guy wants to make small talk. Typically in the morning I’m coming off a bus nap if I’m at a coffee cart and the last thing I want to do is shoot the breeze about the weather, the Super Bowl, the Yankees or whatever. As soon as Coffee Cart Guy feels comfortable enough to talk about the weather, I find another guy. I hope this one doesn’t reach that stage because he’s really convenient.
The worst case of assumption I ever had happened at a deli up the block from my office. I would go in there roughly 3 times a week in the days before I started bringing lunch from home most days. Many times I would get the grilled chicken cutlet with Swiss cheese melted under the broiler with a small amount of onion and honey mustard. There was (and actually still is) one hot sandwich guy who would try to make that for me every single time. One time, in fact (and I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favor) he made the sandwich without ever even talking to me and handed it to me when my turn in line came up. Only problem was their roast beef looked particularly rare and nice that day and I wanted that. But, like a dummy I took what he gave me and left…and didn’t set foot in the place for lunch again for two months. By then, his memory had re-set and henceforth I have never ordered the same sandwich on consecutive visits lest they begin to think that is my new “usual”.
Urban life is fraught with peril, isn’t it? All these invisible or barely-noticed hands touching your life. It keeps you on your toes though. Makes me avoid the trap of the old “usual”. I wonder what the cleaning lady does when I move the plant on the weekend. Maybe that explains the flipped-over-mouse and askew keyboard on Monday mornings. Some people need the usual.
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