The True NY State of Mind

This post is long overdue, but it is about something that burns every time I think about it. I am generally an ace at pretending that things that hurt don't ever phase me. It is part of what classifies me as a bona fide badass. (Poll: Can I be a badass and still use words like bona fide?) So for the most part, I like to bring up painful topics before someone else does, just to prove that I have moved on, much as you would expect from a badass. You know, like, "You remember how Boise State lost to East Carolina in the Hawaii Bowl? Yeah, I don't even care about that."

Well, this is different. I get so frustrated and so bitter that I have just trapped it inside, which is the healthy way to deal with problems, as I understand it. Anyways, I take us back to May 10. I have a few friends at church who wanted to go to a Mets game. That is fine, of course, but they aren't what you would call true baseball fans. As a matter of fact, they had never been to a baseball game and were in it for the baseball experience. The problem this created were 1) the Mets and 2) the weather.

The Mets have not been the creme de la creme of baseball teams lately (read "for the last two decades"). And unless you can really respect fielding errors and drunken fans, you will have a hard time getting the true baseball experience out of the Mets. As for the weather, it was raining.

In an unfortunate lapse of judgment, we had decided that I would purchase the tickets and the others would pay me back at the game. In total, I purchased 6 tickets, one for me and one for the five others who agreed to go with me. Come the day of the game, the other five decided they did not want to go, for various reasons (mainly those listed above). This left me with 5 more tickets than I needed and five fewer friends than I thought I had.

It was a gametime development, so I couldn’t sell the tickets on Craigslist. But it seemed like such a waste to let the tickets go to waste. I figured that I could give the tickets away to whoever needed them, but the problem was finding people who would actually take them. I would say that 95% of people coming off the subway already had tickets, so it would be so inefficient to stand around trying to find the 5% interested.

I figured that the only place where 100% of the people passing through are actually looking for tickets would be the ticket line. I know that selling tickets is illegal on the Shea Stadium premises, but I figured that giving tickets away would not hurt anyone. Just doing my nice deed for the day, and who would possibly want to punish me for that?

Four people approached the ticket booth, I told them I had tickets I was giving away. Then a short fat man wearing a Mets cap and bug-eye sunglasses came over. “See those cameras over there? The NYPD now has evidence of you attempting to sell tickets on Shea Stadium property.”

“But I was just trying to give the tickets away, and …”

“Sir, just shut up and listen to me. You don’t have to be difficult about this. Do you want me to call in the authorities?”

“Are you serious? I was just giving these away …”

“OK, because you are trying to give them away, I already know that you are doing something wrong.”

Eventually I walked away and threw the tickets in the trash. “Because you are giving them away, I know you are doing something wrong.” That made me so mad. It was one of those New York moments where the city is so well-trained to distrust any unselfish act. If there was ever a moment where I wish I could have roundhouse kicked anyone or anything, it was that moment right there, where I wish I could have roundhouse kicked those bug-eye glasses right off his face.

Because you are being nice, I know you are doing something wrong. What belligerent arrogance. There is no other attitude that will destroy a society more quickly or more viciously, but probably the one phrase that best sums up the New York state of mind.

Put that on a t-shirt.