Why I Don’t Sit on NYC Public Benches

No caption necessary, just gross.

My gut reaction to the question of why I don’t sit on public benches in NYC is perhaps the most visceral of reactions.  The simple answer is, well, because that would just be ridiculous.  The more complicated answer is you guessed it, another wonderful Kinda OCD tale.

It all stems back to one day when I was walking through Central Park with my mom and brother who were in town visiting.  We stopped to watch a man on the sidewalk who was creating these AMAZING spray paintings.  OCD sidebar: I loved the paintings and wanted to buy one, but there was no way I was going to buy something that had touched a New York city street corner …. I would never be able to look at it the same way.  And I imagine spray paintings and Lysol wipes don’t mix. 

While admiring the man’s masterpieces, all of the sudden my mom gasped in horror and pointed to a man who was sitting on a bench in the park.  It took a few seconds for me to digest what my eyes were taking in, especially since my belly was preoccupied with digesting the Carmine’s penne alla vodka I had just devoured (and they allege that pasta is family sized portions …. ha).

Sitting on a bench on the edge of the park was a man who proceeded to clean himself with the dirtiest washcloth I had ever seen.  He was clearly trying to give the street artist a run for his money for the best show in town.  Dirty Shower McGee slowly motioned the rag in and out of his nether regions, and while his soiled clothes thankfully masked most of his hands’ excursions, the damage was already done.

I have a photographic memory which is truly a blessing and a curse.  It served me well for spelling tests as a young lass in elementary school, but as far as my NYC days go, there is a lot I wish I could wipe out of my mind, and this image is definitely in the top 5.  Watching this man’s “shower,” where no body part was off limits, I thought of that episode of friends where Phoebe sees Monica and Chandler making out from Ross’ apartment, and like her I found myself shouting, “MY EYES!”

Now my mom, brother and I kept walking, and were able to move on from this incident semi-unscathed, but I couldn’t help but think of the next person who would sit on that bench, not knowing the bench’s sordid past.  Would it be a young child who decided to put their mouth on the bench …. gross.  Or would it be a couple who decided to soak up the sun while enjoying a delightful day together.  News flash: the sun isn’t the only thing you’re soaking up on that bench today Romeo and Juliet!

This is why I don’t sit on public benches.  Nowhere, no how.  If I’m out with my friends and they want to sit, I will proudly stand awkwardly beside them instead.  And don’t even get me started on benches in the subway.  Consider those benches an exponential heck to the no in my Kinda OCD world.  I literally wouldn’t sit on one for one million dollars.  That’s right, one million dollars (insert Austin Powers pinky gesture here).  Sitting on one of those things is like inviting every scum of the earth human excretion that ever existed to touch you.  There’s a reason homeless people set up shop on those benches, and it’s not because they’re clean.

I mean, have you ever REALLY looked at those benches?  That wet mark, yeah that’s not water, that’s urine.  And sure, that red goo could be juice but wrong again, that’s blood!  Every bench in NYC should have a sign on it stating “Sit at your Own Risk” …. or at the very least “This is Not a Shower!”

Redbox aka Dirtybox

Growing up, my family dubbed me the Movie Queen.  This title, which I proudly wear, came about from the fact that I love movies …. like a lot.  My favorite movie when I was a little kid was The Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation.  I remember curling up on the couch and watching that movie on repeat like it was my job.  And when you’re under the age of 10, that pretty much is your job.

I watched it so much so, in fact, that I memorized all the words and would recite them with the characters.  My favorite part was when the Care Bears sing to pump themselves up while they go to defeat Dark Heart at the summer camp.  I would boisterously sing with them, “CARE A LOT, WE CARE A LOT (insert clapping here!)”  I imagine anyone who was a child of the 80s has seen this movie and likely loves it as much as I do.  I mean what’s not to love when you have a group of charming Care Bears making an evil boy find that he cares, he really cares.

As I got older, my love of movies carried on.  I lived for school breaks when my mom would take us to rent movies at Price Chopper or Blockbuster.  Those movies may have been a rip-off at around $5 a pop, but the joy they gave me was insurmountable, and those movies defined my youth.

I can still remember renting Scream when it came out on VHS in 1997.  My sisters really wanted to see it and although I was a wee bit scared, I figured, meh, how bad can it be?  Turns out, it actually was that bad and that movie literally terrified the crap outta me.  But one good thing did come out of that experience, it made me realize that I don’t like scary movies.

Throughout the years, movie rental stores opened and closed all around me (Hollywood Video, anyone), but I like to think that the ones that stayed in business have me to thank.  So you can imagine my delight when Redbox kiosks started springing up in my hometown.  $1.29 a rental, don’t mind if I do (please note, I love that they already increased their price from the original 99 cents, ah the economy never fails to disappoint).

I pretty much rent a movie (or five) every time I go home.  Watching movies relaxes me, or so it did until that fateful day February 17^th, 2013.  I was home for my mom’s birthday, and we decided to rent a movie to watch after our celebratory dinner.

I strolled up to the kiosk as I always did, with a bounce in my step and a grin from ear to ear.  I just love the anticipation of not knowing what magical world I will be in that night …. Narnia with the Pevensie siblings or Hogwarts with HP …. ahhhh the possibilities.  What movie would my mom and I be watching that night, why, the Redbox gods would be deciding in a few moments.  As the movies starting dancing across the screen, I realized that I had already seen about 75% of them.  With limited options, I ended up deciding on Rock of Ages.  I have seen the Broadway show multiple times and loved it, so figured, why not see Tom Cruise slip into Stacee Jaxx’s tight leather pants.

But boy was I in for a rude awakening when this popped out of that kiosk o’ delight.

Seriously, gross.

It was so dirty, at first I was hesitant to even take it out.  I contemplated just pushing it back in there and hoping the Redbox gods would hear my internal cries and spit out a cleaner version of the case.  After a solid minute of reflection, I realized I may have been a bit OCD in my thoughts and I decided I was overreacting, so I grabbed the edges of the case and pulled it out for dear life.  But the thought of putting the dirtiness into my Blu-ray player was still plaguing my OCD thoughts.

OCD Thoughts: “Kelly, you can’t do it, that thing is all sorts of nasty!  Do you even know what those marks are?  I’ll tell you, they’re probably puke, dirt, or spit, or a combination of all of them …. do you really want that in your room?”

Me: “Damn you, OCD thoughts, back off, I am trying really hard to be less cray!”

When I got back into the car I showed my mom the disc:

Me: “Look at how nasty this case is, isn't it so gross!”

Mom: “Eww that's disgusting.”

Me: “I KNOW!  I don’t even want to bring it into my room!”

(OCD Thoughts: “Haha, gotcha!”)

Me: “Well I guess I can just take the disc out and leave the case in the kitchen.”

(OCD Thoughts: “Damnit!”)

Mom: “Gross, I don’t even want that thing in my kitchen!”

WHAT!  My fears were confirmed!  I was not overreacting when I considered not even touching the thing in the first place.

The most ironic part of this whole story is that my mom and I ended up hating the movie and stopped watching it about 30 minutes in.  Julianne Hough may be a force in the ballroom but girl can’t sing a note.  So I took the disc down to the kitchen where the case was deftly positioned on a napkin so as to not touch anything, and while putting it away, I noticed that the box says “Questions or Problems,” give us a call.  I considered calling them and saying “Oh hello, Redbox, or shall I say Dirtybox, not only did I not enjoy Rock of Ages as it is a lackluster take on the amazing Broadway show and Julianne Hough is a terrible singer, I was also not pleased that it looked like someone ran over the case with a garbage truck!  It’s called quality control people, you may want to learn to employ it!”  My better judgment led me to not make this call.

We returned the movie the next day on my way to the train station.  I didn't want to have dirty hands my whole train ride back to the city, so I held the movie with a napkin when I returned it, which made this Redbox experience a bit different from the others.  My bounce in my step and grin were gone and this time I strolled into Price Chopper with my head down hoping that no one would notice that I was holding the movie with a napkin.  I may or may not have gotten a perplexed and judgmental stare from the cart boy, but hey, I had to do what needed to be done.  No way was I going to sit on Amtrak for hours with a dirty Redbox scum hand.  I quickly shoved the movie into the slot, threw the napkin and cursed the day that I wanted to see Stacee Jaxx singing Pour Some Sugar on Me.  The only thing I wanted to pour was Purell …. all over my body.

My Irrational Fears

Living alone for the past two years has led me to have some important epiphanies about myself.  My most recent revelation is that I have some irrational fears.  And by some, I clearly mean a lot.  Here is a sample of a few of them:

1. That a person is going to hide under my bed, wait until I fall asleep and then kill me (this will be similar to the Sqweegel episode of CSI …. aka terrifying).
2. I will be taking a shower and will look through my glass shower door and see a hand shutting off the bathroom lights.  Said person will then kill me (in the dark).
3. A stranger will be watching me while I sleep and I will wake up with their face within an inch of mine.  This stranger will then proceed to kill me.
4. I will go to take out my garbage and while I am down the hall a stranger will quickly dart into my apartment without me noticing.  I will come back and the next thing going down that garbage shoot will be my dead body.
5. I will be brushing my teeth and bend over to rinse, and upon standing someone will be standing behind me and I will see their reflection in the mirror.  And you guessed it, this person will then kill me.

You may be noticing a theme.  Living alone in NYC has made me 100% Wuss Certifiable.  I don’t know if it’s because I've watched too many episodes of Law and Order: SVU where Olivia Benson and Elliot Stabler are solving the murders of twenty-something year old women who are killed in their NYC apartments …. oh wait, that’s PRECISELY the reason.  It also doesn't help that I have an unexplainable obsession with horror movies.  I don’t want to watch them, but I feel compelled to.  If I’m flipping through the channels and see a movie that looks interesting and start watching it before realizing it’s a horror movie, I can’t help but keep watching until the credits roll.  It’s like I immediately form a bond with these fictional characters, and I need to see them find their happy place again, or at the very least know how they get the ax (literally or figuratively).  I imagine this characteristic would have made me quite valuable in times of war.

I have a similar obsession with ‘worst case scenario’ books.  I feel better about life when I’m prepared for every potential scenario that could come my way.  An alligator’s chasing you, be sure to run in zigzags because their short legs limit them from changing direction quickly.  Shark attacking you, why punch him in the nose not the eyes because sharks roll their eyes back when they attack.  These tips have clearly proven to be terribly useful on the streets of New York.

I guess my Girl Scout days have carried through though, because my motto remains, ‘Be prepared.’  So by reading these worst case scenario books and watching scary movies, I am getting ready for the day when something may go down.  The one thing I've never understood though about horror movies is when people run up the stairs to evade the killer.  I don’t need to read a worst case scenario book to know that when a killer is attacking you, do not, I repeat do not run up the stairs.  I mean isn't that common sense by now?  To this day it still blows my mind that Sidney made it out of the first Scream installment alive.

These horror movie scenes paired with Benson and Stabler’s exponential amount of NYC killer cases have forever left a fear imprint on my brain.  Sometimes, on Halloween, when people dress up as the Scream villain I literally start to panic.

Inside the OCD mind: “I mean, at the beginning of Scream 2 everyone thought the person in the mask was just a fake too …. until they realized he wasn't joking …. and that he was killing people …. like a lot of people …. gross.”

If he/she creepy mask killer even comes near me at a bar, I throw my drink at them and immediately start to run in the opposite direction.

But honestly, when you live by yourself every sense becomes heightened.  I walk into my apartment each night and it’s like my door opening is a cue for the Jaws theme to start. 

“Da da (quickly scan the room)....... da da (turn on all the lights) ....... da da (take off my coat so I’m more limber in the event of an attack) ……. da da ……. da da da da dadada DADADADA ….DA DA!!!!!!!”

The music usually stops around the time I've checked out the kitchen and bathroom because in my eyes these are the most likely spots that a killer would hide.  Well, that or in my closets, but I like to think that a killer wouldn't choose to spend that much time in a sea of wrap dresses and tights.

Reading all this, you might naturally assume that I have a reason to be this crazy ….  I assure you, I don’t.  My imagination is quite vivid, both a blessing and a curse.  The most realistic feeling (non)attack that I've ever experienced happened a few months ago.  I had to work late and ended up eating dinner at 11pm ….

Me: “I’ll take ‘Bad Ideas’ for $100, Alex.” 

Alex Trebek: “Alright, Scardey Cat McGee, what is the worst thing you can eat right before bed?

Me: “RAVIOLIO?!”

Alex Trebek: “YOU ARE CORRECT!”

And ravioli it was, right in my belly.  Feeling satiated, I was quickly lulled into a pleasant slumber until the ravioli decided to take its revenge.  In the middle of the night I woke up to an image of a stranger standing at the foot of my bed.  When he saw that I was awake, he said “Yeah, this is happening” and lunged to attack me.  I screamed bloody murder before waking myself up and realizing it was just a dream (slash night terror).  When I finally gained some semblance of composure, I still had a hard time convincing myself that it was just a dream.  I drew my comforter up to my eyes and lay completely still in the event that killer man was just hiding and waiting for me to go back to sleep.  Needless to say, my eyes stayed open all night.

In hindsight, I don’t know what was more upsetting about my night terror experience.  The fact that I woke up with every item from my bed sprawled out all over the floor or the fact that despite my blood curdling screams, not a single person in my apartment building called the police or even checked to see if I was alive or dead.  #NYCliving.

If you've seen American Psycho, then you know what I'm talking about.  When my brother was visiting a few months ago, he joked that my apartment floor’s hallway looked like the hallway from the movie.  While most of us watched American Psycho and couldn't help but laugh as Christian Bale chased a girl down the hall with a chainsaw, I now understand why this is viewed as such a sardonic take on NYC living.  A woman is literally pleading for help with chainsaw hums providing the melody to her cries and not a single person on the floor opens their door to help her.  Jaded New Yorkers may be an understatement.

I like to think that if I heard blood curdling screams in the dead of night, I would do SOMETHING.  At a bare minimum I would call the police.  I mean what’s one more case for Olivia and Elliot?