Naked on the Subway (Part 2)

I arrived at the dry cleaners, and the Chinese woman who owned the place knew me by last name. She said, “I’ll be right back.” I was thinking about how I would phrase my request of, “Can I use your back room,"or “Do you have somewhere I can get dressed,” when she brought out 10 suits. She started to give them to me when I said, “No, I’ll just take the blue one.” She laughed and said, “You get dressed here.”

It really annoyed me. Can we discuss the level I had taken this non-morning person thing? I’m one of those rare breed non-morning people who, not only can’t wake up in the morning, but when forced to be up early, I can’t speak. Or I can speak, but it’s with great difficulty, that’s for sure. I mean, who really wants to talk in the morning?

Maybe if I hadn’t had so much to drink the night before, and didn’t have a hangover, things would’ve went differently. Maybe, if in the past I had been able to handle a morning question like, “Would you like some orange juice,” without wanting to commit murder, things would’ve went differently. Maybe if I got more sleep in general, but shoulda, coulda, woulda for some damn reason the Chinese woman telling me, “You get dressed here,” pissed me off. I thought it was rather presumptuous of her to tell me I was getting dressed there.

And that laugh. Ha ha ha ha. It wasn’t a full laugh. It wasn’t a sneer. It was an, “I’m happy and don’t need coffee or anything in the morning, I just wake up,” type of laugh. Maybe she laughed, because she was nervous. Or maybe she actually had a sense of humor. Maybe she was laughing because I was obviously naked and needed a place to get dressed, and how the hell did this happen?

But in the morning, I can’t think straight. I can’t think of all these logical reasons. The laugh was part of my anger. If she had said without laughing, “I know how hard it is to get up in the morning and then to get dressed on top of it is too much. Here, come in the back and you get dressed here.” That type of understanding would’ve made all the difference.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, “You get dressed here. Ha ha ha ha.” So I showed her by walking right out and potentially losing the only place I had to get dressed in. I said, “No, I’m taking that suit for later,” which made no sense. Displaced anger is a real bitch.

As I walked down Washington Avenue, people seemed to notice me. A police man waved, a construction worker whistled, and I got a few up-and-down look overs from men and women walking by, but somehow I thought this was totally normal. I had convinced myself that nobody really noticed anything amiss.

I walked fast to the Barnes and Noble that was right next to the Path train. My plan was to get dressed in there. As I got closer, I realized it was closed. I’d never been by there that early to know that it doesn’t open before 8. Shit! I’m going to have to ride the Path train naked. How is this my life?

TO BE CONTINUED...