A few pointers

[ice_9]

There seem to be a lot of tourists in NYC this week, what with New Year's coming up and all the kiddies off school. I realize that some of you may be having a little trouble with New York, so here's a list of helpful tips for you.

• New Yorkers walk on the right. This allows us to maintain a flow of traffic in both directions even on those narrow subway steps. If you are walking on the left, do not be surprised when the New Yorker coming up the stairs does not pause at the bottom, but instead walks directly over top of you. It's nothing personal; if he didn't, the New Yorkers behind him would walk over top of him.
• There are no bathrooms in the subway. Maybe in Times Square somewhere, but trust me, you don't want to use them anyway. Don't ask me where the bathroom is in the 28th St. station. Look left. Look right. That long strip of concrete next to the tracks that we're standing on? That's the whole station. If you gotta go that bad, do me a favor and piss on the third rail.
• Addendum to the first point: don't take up the whole sidewalk. The sidewalk has to hold a lot of people, going different directions at different speeds. The fact that you have 8 kids does not entitle you to take up the entire sidewalk, especially while walking slowly enough to gawk at every building taller than 3 stories. I will attempt to go around your sidewalk-occupying herd, but other people may not, so you may want to keep a leash on your kids if you don't want them to wind up as hood ornaments on yellow Crown Vics.
• Cabs don't stop.
• You may be here on vacation, but New Yorkers are not. Several of us have jobs to get to. If you happen to be riding the subway between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM and you do things like stand directly in front of the doors as they open, or block up 3 of the 4 turnstiles between you and your kids, or park your double-wide stroller in front of the doors nearest to the exit at the Wall St. stop, try not to be surprised when things don't go well for you.

This has been a public service announcement. I feel much better now.