Cupcake Fans, this is one for the ages.
On this blog, I've written about a number of topics, ranging from spilled coffee and broken hearts to stripper poles and "rocking the log cabin." (No really, that's in a blog post. Check it out for yourselves.) I've also, it seems, focused on some "Only in New York" moments that I have encountered since being here, since I first arrived at my NYU dorm with a typical Target extra-long sheet set and a whole lot of incorrect assumptions about college, this city, and life after high school in general.
And now, for those of you who hold the assumption that good things never happen, that New Yorkers are heartless beasts who would never dream of giving up a subway seat to a pregnant lady or helping the elderly or even extending a tiny bit of kindness, bite your tongues. Every one of you. There is kindness seeping from every nook and cranny of this sensational city. And before you gripe about the one rude person who pushed past you this morning, listen to what I think is, quite honestly, an exhilarating "Only In New York Story." And it's one hundred percent true.
First off, I haven't been blogging recently because my computer has been in a very sad, pretentious place known as the "SoHo Apple Store" where so-called "geniuses" wear witty shirts and try to get you to trade in your perfectly reasonable little iPod for some new gadget that hasn't yet had a kink-free incarnation. But that's besides the point. On Monday, I gleefully stepped out of the store with my laptop in tow, knowing that NOW finally, after $300 worth of repairs, my laptop would once again function as a laptop. It would recognized my new battery. It was clean, shiny, new, beautiful, wonderful. And in seconds, it was gone.
Well, not seconds. Minutes, maybe. After a trip to Whole Foods to pick up salmon I was planning to lovingly glaze and cook for The Boyfriend and myself, I took the V train and, consequently, found myself walking through the annals of the the 6th Avenue L stop when I heard that familiar noise -- the steaming, stalling sound of the subway waiting at the platform. I walked briskly, thinking I might catch it. As I reached the closing doors, I swung my hand out in between them, a knee-jerk reaction that might stop an elevator. It was then I realized that the hand I had put out to stop the subway doors was tightly gripped around the handle of a laptop case. I pulled my hand back, trying to prevent damage to my laptop. The computer itself exited the doors, safe and sound. The shoulder strap attached to the case did not.
I realized right away that the shoulder strap was wedged between the doors and that they were firmly closed. To my right, people watched as I tugged at the laptop case, thinking the doors would reopen. They didn't. The train began to move and I moved with it, grabbing at the grey laptop case, screaming at the train conductor along with other cries from my fellow straphangers. He watched me as I stumbled, weighing the option of letting myself be dragged with the subway train before I finally let go, and then he drove away.
With my MacBook dangling from the outside of the train.
I watched it disappear into the tunnel, watched as the train conductor looked me dead in the eyes and kept moving. The image is blurred at the edges in my memory, mostly because it's the moment when hysteria kicked in.
I decided to run to 8th Avenue. I'm not sure why. The train wasn't headed in that direction, and I could have just as quickly taken an L train. Either way, I got confused in my hysterics (sobbing while running down the street, saying "F*ck!" a lot, to the chagrin of fellow pedestrians) and somehow managed to make my way back into the same damned 6th Avenue station after much running, sweating, and panting. It was then I decided to take the subway to 8th Avenue and talk to someone -- my rational side and my optimistic side were conveniently remembering an article I read once about the subway Lost and Found, where items such as expensive technology and prosthetic limbs are dropped off and never recovered by their owners, simply because they don't think anyone could possibly have been so nice. I wondered, perhaps, if my laptop (had it not been crushed by the train and mistaken for cheese by the third-rail-dwelling rats) would find its way there too. Either way, I had to try.
I was guided by an orange-vested MTA worker to a secret door at the end of the platform and, had I not been completely and utterly dismayed at my loss, I probably would have found the whole thing bizarre. If I wasn't choking back heavy sobs, I might have likened the room behind the door to a glimpse into Santa's workshop or a peek behind the wizard's curtain -- except dirty, foul-smelling, and not particularly exciting at all. Inside, a woman with very long fingernails and a half-knitted pink scarf gave me the number for the lost and found. An MTA employee, also in the office, said he would "Check the tracks" on his way to Canarsie. He then asked me if the laptop was expensive... to which I responded with a tearful "It's--" sniffle "--the only laptop I have!"
After riding to Union Square, speaking to a police officer who told me "Things like that don't really turn up again" (gee, thanks), and checking the platform for a stray laptop, I momentarily gave up. There was nothing I could do but take the subway home and glaze my stupid salmon... salted, of course, by the bitter tears of despair.
Walking in the door of my apartment, I tried to regain composure but the sniffles and gasps betrayed me almost immediately. The Boyfriend, on the phone with his sister when I threw down my things and covered my face, hung up and grabbed me, pulling me into a bear hug. I explained what happened while being somewhat distracted by the odd fear that a rogue drip of snot would sneak out of my nose and he would finally see me at my worst, my ugliest, and my most downtrodden. I sat down, my head in my hands, when my phone started to buzz.
Thinking it was Mr. I'll Check The Tracks For Ya', I ran to answer it.
"Yes" I said, when he asked if it was me.
The gruff voice on the other line continued: "This is dispatch in Canarsie for the L train. We have your laptop, somebody dropped it off."
Someone, some WONDERFUL soul, had delivered my laptop to the depths of Brooklyn. Delirious with hunger, The Boyfriend and I hopped onto the next L we could grab, while I made sounds that straddled the line between heaving sobs and hearty guffaws. On the train, I crossed my fingers that this wasn't all a joke, that my laptop wasn't somehow in multiple pieces with cartoonish subway tracks running across the shards of hard drive.
It wasn't. It was working, good as new, and even the case was unscathed, about as dirty as it had been before. Before the train had even left Canarsie, I opened the computer and held my breath as I pushed the power button. As the screen lit-up, the famous MacIntosh reboot noise sounded like heavenly angels singing a hallelujah chorus.
I doubt that my own personal angel will read this blog. But I can only hope that this piece of good fortune is in response to something that I did sometime... that a piece of kindness I gave to someone once came back to be my saving grace. The Boyfriend seems to think that "this would only happen to someone as nice" as me. I personally think that this would only happen to someone as clumsy as I am. But no matter -- somewhere, there is a New Yorker who looked out for me. It's a tough, gritty city, I'll admit, but the symphony of kindness somehow rose above the everyday din of apathy. Thank you, NYC.
