We were walking down a road on the Upper West Side towards breakfast.
“Ah the warm glow of the ever-open Dunkin’ Doughnuts…” I said to Ivy, a friend from school and fellow Pub Club member. Suddenly a woman interrupts me, looking slightly scared and waving her hands franticly.
“The baker didn’t show up! We closed!” she continued with hesitation, like I might take a whack at her face (which may or may not have been considered…).
“Closed?!” we both say back to the poor girl who was working the 5am shift on Thanksgiving.
“Yeah, there no doughnuts. We can’t open!”
“But what about the coffee fairy?” I asked, still slightly delusional at this unheard of hour in the morning. There was always coffee, right? I mean, black, steamy deliciousness usually just magically appeared each time I walked into a Dunkin' Doughnuts. There were mountains of coffee beans in the store room - that I was sure of - unless... Could the baker possibly and stolen the blessed beans? That is a crime punishable by death.
She sort of laughed at me, probably relieved to know that I wasn’t going to hit her. But now there really was a dilemma: we needed caffeine – and fast – because we had woken up at a ridiculous hour to attend the annual Macy’s Day Parade. And the crowds had to be beat.
After searching a few street corners and locating a random deli, Ivy and I partook in a healthy meal of muffins and soda, only costing us about $3 each. Oh to be graduate students in the city! Quite a glamorous lifestyle, my friends.
But it was fabulous to line up along Central Park West and watch the floats pass by us in real life, not just on television. It was crowded, but we had our tactics to finding the ideal location.
“Pardon me, excuse me,” we said to strange individuals who stopped at the most bizarre viewing points. I assume they didn’t realize more space was available ahead, but to get through to breathing room we had to squeeze by some pleasant and some not-so-pleasant people.
“Dad… dad wait up!” Ivy repeated this phrase several times to the large man who was in front of us, clearing a path. We didn’t know him in the slightest, but no one was going to yell at the two daughters of a 350-pound man.
Haha... sneaky.
“Dad, where’s mom?” I ask. “Dad, I’ve got Jimmy’s balloon.” “Dad, it’s so hard to get through the crowd.”
Dad, Dad, Dad. Thank goodness the man never turned around or looked at us curiously. We would have just laughed, and possibly said something along the lines of “Hey Dad (wink wink)… keep going!”
Finally we reached a spot with less people and a stoop where we could stand to better view the parade. It was an ideal location and right beside the Dakota, where John Lennon was shot and Yoko Ono lives to this day. Occasionally we would look for her through the top floor windows, but of course the main events were Tom the Turkey, Snoopy, Kanye West, and Santa.
So Happy Belated Turkey Day, and check #56 off “The List.”
The man of the hour, Mr. Santa Claus
Kanye West
Joan Rivers
Jessica Simpson
