brkn, ny
Long ago, Bob and I started referring to Brooklyn as "Broken." Years of dealing with surly customer service, down-graded franchises, and dysfunctional civil service providers that pronounced the borough's name pretty damn close to that gave us reason to believe the moniker applied better than one might think. There's the Broken Postal Service, the Broken Target, the Broken Sears and Broken Blockbuster, the Broken Museum of Art, Broken Dental Group, Broken Department of Motor Vehicles and the Broken Pub'ic Lib'ary, all of which more often than not have left us frustrated and wondering why we've stayed on the Broken side of the Broken Bridge as long as we have.
For the past few days NBC has been hyping next Monday's 3D episode of Medium, announcing that the necessary 3D glasses would be available in TV Guide on newsstands starting yesterday, November 17th. I decided to stop off this morning at the Walgreen's around the corner from our Broken apartment, the Walgreen's a few doors down from the building that only recently was renovated from a rat-infested pigeon-coop shell to what the Corcoran Group is now selling as "luxury apartments." The building's street level is still the local homeless and methadone addicts' favorite Dunkin Donuts, a Muslim bodega with milk that is suspiciously not stamped with "NYC Sell By" dates and a Muslim butcher shop where whole freshly slaughtered and skinned lambs arrive weekly, uncovered in the back of the delivery truck and wheeled legs up from the street to the shop door in an old Key Foods shopping cart with one broken wheel, all the while the shop owner and a delivery man yelling at each other in several broken languages. The building also looks out over one of the largest and loudest intersections in all of Broken, a truck route where Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues intersect with one another, but someone at Corcoran wants us to believe this is luxurious living.
A few doors down in the Broken Walgreen's I asked if they carried TV Guide and the surly cashier pointed at the magazine rack as if I should have seen it for myself. I'm not use to the new larger format for what was once an easy-chair-pocket-sized publication, and I was expecting to see Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber on the cover.
"Oh, this is it?" I asked; confused by what I saw. "Is this last week's issue?"
"New issue won't come 'til later," she sneared as if I had let rip a great big fart and stunk up her whole check-out counter.
"Oh," I replied trying to smile politely. "It's been all over TV that the new issue would be available yesterday. "
"I said, it don't come 'til later," the Broken cashier repeated with a tone that asked if I was deaf or what? "She don't come 'til Friday's."
"Hmm..." I winced. I gave up getting into sass fights with Broken cashiers several years ago after one ended our heated conversation with "Nobody win, 'cause nobody know they stupid."
This morning I simply replied, "Okay," and walked out of the store.
Just wait, I thought. Just wait until the luxury tenants start shopping at the Broken Waltgreen's. Too bad I won't be around the neighborhood to see what happens then.
For the past few days NBC has been hyping next Monday's 3D episode of Medium, announcing that the necessary 3D glasses would be available in TV Guide on newsstands starting yesterday, November 17th. I decided to stop off this morning at the Walgreen's around the corner from our Broken apartment, the Walgreen's a few doors down from the building that only recently was renovated from a rat-infested pigeon-coop shell to what the Corcoran Group is now selling as "luxury apartments." The building's street level is still the local homeless and methadone addicts' favorite Dunkin Donuts, a Muslim bodega with milk that is suspiciously not stamped with "NYC Sell By" dates and a Muslim butcher shop where whole freshly slaughtered and skinned lambs arrive weekly, uncovered in the back of the delivery truck and wheeled legs up from the street to the shop door in an old Key Foods shopping cart with one broken wheel, all the while the shop owner and a delivery man yelling at each other in several broken languages. The building also looks out over one of the largest and loudest intersections in all of Broken, a truck route where Atlantic, Flatbush and Fourth Avenues intersect with one another, but someone at Corcoran wants us to believe this is luxurious living.
A few doors down in the Broken Walgreen's I asked if they carried TV Guide and the surly cashier pointed at the magazine rack as if I should have seen it for myself. I'm not use to the new larger format for what was once an easy-chair-pocket-sized publication, and I was expecting to see Patricia Arquette and Jake Weber on the cover.
"Oh, this is it?" I asked; confused by what I saw. "Is this last week's issue?"
"New issue won't come 'til later," she sneared as if I had let rip a great big fart and stunk up her whole check-out counter.
"Oh," I replied trying to smile politely. "It's been all over TV that the new issue would be available yesterday. "
"I said, it don't come 'til later," the Broken cashier repeated with a tone that asked if I was deaf or what? "She don't come 'til Friday's."
"Hmm..." I winced. I gave up getting into sass fights with Broken cashiers several years ago after one ended our heated conversation with "Nobody win, 'cause nobody know they stupid."
This morning I simply replied, "Okay," and walked out of the store.
Just wait, I thought. Just wait until the luxury tenants start shopping at the Broken Waltgreen's. Too bad I won't be around the neighborhood to see what happens then.
3 Comments:
We should plan a field trip about six months from now, Jay, and have a looksee.
Now THAT would be one fun field trip!
BROKEN! I live in "Broken." I should be insulted! Angry! Hurt! But, I'm afraid it's true. Thanks for the post.
Dogerbear
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