Only in NYC will you walk past a Naked Cowboy, Hello Kitty or someone painted completely green and nobody even stares at them. Honestly, there are no freaks in NYC. There were a few people, however, who made an impression. The very first night we landed in NY, we had a great driver who drove us from LaGuardia to the hotel. He was from Africa and was so glad to be in the United States. I loved this guy from the second that I met him. He told us about growing up with 1 pair of shoes to wear to school, to church, to play in and everywhere else. He grew up very poor and was blessed to have that one pair of shoes. He was glad to be here and have more than one pair of shoes. Thank you, God for not making me live in Africa with no shoes!!
Okay I have lived in the South my entire life and have never even spoken to a Muslim in my entire life. The only ones that I have ever seen have been in the airport or at the mall. Needless to say, the only thing that I know about their religion is The Koran is their holy book and Mohammed is their prophet and Muslims are responsible for the terrorism on 9/11 so they all must be violent and crazed and hateful. Right??????????
So there were these food carts just sitting unattended on the streets of NYC and there was this loud crazy music coming from all of these carts. It sounded like some sort of horn being played. The music was haunting. Then it hit me. It was the "Call to Prayer" that was playing and the unattended food carts were abandoned by their owners because they were doing their daily prayers. If I am not mistaken they pray about 5 times a day. (If I prayed to my God 5 times a day, I would probably be a better person.) Then we finally hailed a cab and of course a Muslim driver picked us up. Was he going to scream at us? Was he going to set a fire? Was he going to set off a bomb while we were driving with him???????? Well while was driving us and he began to talk about 9/11. He talked about the horror he felt and how all he could do was stare out his window in shock, much the same as I did at the TV that day. Every Muslim we encountered was polite, hard working and nothing like Achmed!! One of our drivers told me about how just after 9/11 he could not leave his house because of people being angry at all Muslims about 9/11 and how there was violence against them because of their religion and how they were hurt by the attacks too. I felt ashamed of myself because I had thought terrible things about all of those people myself. I didn't realize that there were those Muslims who hated what was done on 9/11 just as much as I did. I pride myself on not being judgmental of people but I had judged an entire religion on the acts of some. I am sorry for that. I now know that they all don't feel this way about us "infidels".
So we went to "The Lion King" at The Minskoff Theater one night and I was honestly afraid the bathroom attendant was a terrorist. I don't know what religion she was but maybe she just needed some religion, or somebody to Bless Her Heart or maybe she just needed some sweet tea. I am not sure what her problem was but this attendant was screaming at us in the stalls and telling us that we were taking too long. Has this woman ever tried to pull up underwear, Spanx and pants? I don't think she understands what it takes to get all of these items back in place! Honestly!! It takes more than 15 seconds to dismantle the undergarments, sit, pee, wipe accordingly, pull up undies, Spanx, Pants, fasten the belt, turn around and flush. I consider it rude to have almost 1600 seats in a theater and have 4 stalls for the ladies. Just sayin'! At intermission, if half of the crowd is female and then half of the females have to pee then you have 400 women standing in line to pee and 4 stalls. Intermission was 10 minutes. You can do the math but even I know the odds aren't very good that everyone can do their business in that amount of time with that amount of stalls!! So stop screaming at me you terrorist bathroom attendant!! No tip for you!!!
I had many, many people leave an impression on me but the most interesting person that we ran into was this homeless person. All of the homeless people in NYC have a cardboard sign and a hoodie. This one guy had a sign and it said, "I'm not even going to lie. I need money for pot". I swear I thought about putting a few bucks in his can because he was being honest. I laughed out loud!! I have mad respect for that homeless, pothead!!
Come back tomorrow...
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