Here I Am! But Who Cares?

After I decided on my new Brooklyn pad, I frantically packed up all of my things and was set on a road trip with my mother and grandfather to get all of my precious items to their new home.  We spent the first weekend in May, moving in all of my stuff.  I then had to return to western PA to finish up all of my graduate school finals before I was in NYC permanently.  I returned to my new home a week or so later.  When I got off the plane at JFK, I wanted to yell “Here I am, NYC!”  I was in quite a good spot; I was about to start a new job with the feds, it was the start of summer and I was NYC’s newest resident. I could not wait to strut my stuff down the street knowing that this was my new home.

Although I was thrilled to a new NYC resident and my friends and family were thrilled for me, I soon found out that NYC didn’t care one bit that I had arrived. During my first week in the city, I was spending my time exploring and getting my new room together. I had a few days until I started my new job and I wasn’t wasting them! With that being said, I had no schedule and nowhere that I was trying to be in a hurry. I soon realized that I was the only one living that way. I was poked, pushed and prodded everywhere I went! People didn’t care if I was slowly walking to the subway platform while I was trying to figure out whether I needed to be going towards Pelham Bay Park or Brooklyn Bridge, they had somewhere to be and I was in their way. Same goes for the grocery store, parks, and crossing the street… if a New Yorker sees you, you are passing them or in their path, then you are in their way.

Being raised in a very strict family, I was literally spanked as a child if I didn't use my manners.  Thanks to my mother's discipline growing up, the most surprising and disturbing part of all this is the fact that no one ever said “Excuse me” when I was bumped or in most cases slammed into.  During my first few weeks, I cannot tell you how angry I got by the lack of courtesy. I remember telling my grandmother on the phone one evening, "Gaga, people keep running right into me and never say excuse me! I don't understand why they are so rude; were they raised by wolves?"  Two weeks later, in my mail I found a package from my grandmother. Inside contained a book titled "Were You Raised by Wolves?: Clues to the Mysteries of Adulthood" by Christine Mellor. I read the book soon after and had a few laughs. As my time goes on walking and subway riding throughout the city, the bumps and pushes bother me less and less, but sometimes I still think of the book and laugh to myself, wondering if I should carry the book around with me and ask the exceptionally rude if they would like to borrow it sometime.