Proof that I am sometimes really a real-life Bridget Jones

We're not even going to talk about opening the fridge door at Mani Marketplace on W. 94th, and watching in slow mo as a half-gallon of lactaid tumbled off the shelf and coated the floor with its milky (but lactose-free and digestible!) contents.




No. But what we will talk about is the particle of dust that snuck its way up my nose in the bowels of the subway system, far beneath the intersection of 168, B'way, and St. Nicholas...ready to make my life hell.
I sneezed once, with a ferocity that surprised even me.
Twice.
"Bless you," someone muttered.
Three times.
I started to blush. But still, it wasn't a snotty, blechy kind of coldy sneezing fit. It was obviously a something's up there kind of sneezing fit.
Four times.
I was aiming right into the crook of my arm, looking away from everyone, smushed at the end of my bench and leaning into the empty space by the door, like the 'asponsible citizen I am.
Nonetheless, by 175th street, the elderly pair of real estate dealers, he in a bow-tie and stiff expression, glanced at me warily, and then...
without a HINT of subtlety or consideration for my poor nasal passages...
MOVED to the other end of the car. To avoid me and my nonexistent germs!
Six, seven, eight.
At this point some sympathetic older guy who didn't speak much english started making facial expressions which were a cross between understanding and hitting-upon. This did not comfort me.
We passed 184th, and I had now sneezed at least 15-20 times. I desperately considered getting out here and walking the extra five blocks home, but then there was the issue of the elevators... If i stood in one of them and this attack continued, I might alienate half my neighborhood.
22, 23, 24.
People were definitely staring at me.
At last, as we pulled into 190th, I dashed off my car, and as I was climbing up the stairs, I sneezed lucky sneeze number 31. "Bless you," said someone, for the first time since sneeze No. 2.
32, 33.
Then I had my own, hometown elevator to deal with; my final test. Would it be my waterloo, or would I contain it?
I breathed in deeply and concentrated, as the elevator rose, rose, from Bennett ave up to Ft. Washington. I itched and I twitched...
And I didn't sneeze! Not til I hit the street, and there, it was sort of a final honk of victory. My ordeal was over. Home was near. I had made it.


Moralz of the story: One mini-pack of tissues is never enough. Old real-estate agents with bow-ties are mean, selfish creatures. If at first you don't expel the dust from your nose; try, try, again.

Next time: The story of the hiccuping dude on the D out to Coney Island.