METROPOLITAN DIARY
(Good Morning!)
Waiting
Dear Diary:
I was pacing First Avenue on a summer night. The object of my affection should have been finished with her shift at Sloan Kettering 20 minutes earlier. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks, and my impatience was getting the better of me.
An older woman was pushing a small grocery cart up the sidewalk. Even in the midst of my angst, I noticed her staring at me with a grin that could best be described as cherubic.
We made eye contact briefly, and I remember thinking, “This is all I need.”
The hospital doors had opened fruitlessly a few more times when I felt a hand on my arm.
Startled, I jerked my head around to find the woman with the cart smiling up at me.
“You’re waiting for your sweetie,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I said.
Just then, the doors opened again and there was my sweetie. She jumped into my arms. I’d never been so happy in my whole life.
The woman was forgotten, but only briefly. I’d like her to know we’ve been married for 10 years.
— Ty Heck
Fragrant Lesson
Dear Diary:
After getting off the 7 train at Grand Central on my way to work, I made a beeline to pick up a $2 breakfast sandwich. Like most New Yorkers on an early Tuesday morning, I was focused on getting from Point A to Point B with as little human contact as possible.
I heard a man call out to me as I entered the cafe. I turned around to find a sanitation worker, one of “New York’s Strongest,” trying to catch my attention.
I thought he merely wanted me to hold the door for him, but he surprised me with a question.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “But what scent are you wearing?”
Confused and a bit hesitant, I told him Tom Ford, but that it had a French name I couldn’t pronounce.
He proceeded to confirm the name for me, in French, and then to educate me on Tom Ford’s trailblazing position in the fragrance world, as well as how trends spread through the industry, from the acceleration of rose scents to the impact of Bleu de Chanel.
As I listened, I found it somehow ironic and yet utterly unsurprising that a sanitation worker was explaining all of this to me.
— Amadeo Plaza
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/15/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html
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