Back to School Fabulous!

I woke up this morning focused on my tasks. Email this one, call that one, work out, go to the post office….I like my ladies at the post office, they’re kooky. I figured after my coffee I’d take the walk over before the noon rush when the line is out the door. When you’re unemployed or as I like to call it, freelance, you can avoid the lunch rush, so why wouldn’t you?

As I returned from an always interesting package mailing with Goon Ngar Fun (her name, I swear to God), I noticed two NYU students talking feverishly in front of my building. “Ahhhh”, I thought to myself, “they’re baaaaaack.”

Starting in late August my neighborhood becomes inundated by intellectually curious, overly confident collegians monopolizing the sidewalks and corner store. On weekdays you have to dodge their bulging backpacks, and on weekends, their vomit. I refer to them as human clutter.
A wispy blond holding a clear umbrella with a sparkly fleck, shared personal space with her shorter Asian friend to shield them both from the…..sun? You occasionally see this around here. People with umbrellas in the blazing sunshine. The fact that it was clear is beyond me at the moment, I’ll just leave it alone.

The blond’s speech was animated and louder than necessary as is typically the case. “I don’t CARE” she announced “I am SOOOOO over him! It’s like, what-EVER!!” I smiled to myself as I heard this exclamation. Knowing of course, that not only was it not true, but that her need to announce it on the sidewalk in this manner can only mean that “he” is within earshot.

Been there. Done that.

I often experience pangs of envy when encountering these types. I imagine what it would be like to hail from such a background. Show me a teenage, dorm-dwelling, NYC academic, and I’ll show you a kid who had it easy.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this rule, and knowing what they are we can exclude those. However, generally speaking, any young person that is sent to a school costing his or her family upwards of $75,000 per year to attend, had life served up to them in a way I know not of.

I often wonder as I push through the squatted throngs of rosy-cheeked boys and girls, if they have any idea how fortunate they are? Of the privilege to live in a NYC apartment as a TEENAGER, attend a top school, to absorb what is arguably the greatest city in the world? Have they any inkling of the advantages they will undoubtedly emerge with having garnered such an education? Are they at all aware of how much more simply the red carpet of life will roll out before them?

Not a chance.

How could they know? For rarely is this virtue taught. From what I can tell, their greatest concern is expulsion, whether or not Kim Kardashian has brought the big ass back, and keeping puke off their shoes.

As I approached my building the girls stepped aside to let me through. I smiled and said thanks, then complimented Blondie’s umbrella. This seemed to make her day as her smile lit up 9th street. Truth is, it’s not her fault she’s blonde, rich, and beautiful.
I’m actually cool with it.