Strange Days

I've lived in New York City for eight years, so I can officially, per the unwritten rules fully applicable to NYC residents, call myself "a New Yorker." I always sort of was, though, at heart - not one of those kids that comes in to live it up for a few years and then settle into the Walmart life back home. By New Yorker at heart I mean: cynical, bitter, mean, snappish, always in a rush. You know, all the good qualities that the ever-increasing slime flowing through the sewer system inspires in us New Yorkers. It also means paying no heed to the screaming man on the subway, the topless East Village girl, that inexplicable maple syrup smell.

 Well today on my commute, I found myself in a state of caught off guardness. There was a woman standing near me on the subway. I was leaning against the door, and she was holding onto the pole beside one of the nearby seats. She was fairly unremarkable, this woman: camel colored loafers, cuffed khaki pants, a multi-colored, probably Mossimo, shirt, mousey brown hair in a pony-tail. Oh, the pony-tail! If not for it, I would not have seen: HER NECK PIERCING. This woman, otherwise a complete bore to the aesthetic sense, had her neck pierced. Suddenly she was magical. Not just because she had a neck piercing, no, any Hot Topic g-raver could get one of those at the mall piercing shop. It's because she was so very unremarkable other than the piercing. It's like, "Hey, check me out. I look boring, eh? I don't even register on your radar, do I?" Then, BOOM. Neck piercing in ya face!