"Slap Your Own Taffy!": Our Adventures in NYC. Day Two.

The next day, we went to breakfast at Bubby's where I was thankful once again for my natural reserve. The difference between me and people who sound stupid isn't that I'm not stupid; it's that I don't make as many sounds. Pertinent example: In Bubby's, there was a sign listing their two locations, one in Tribeca and one in Brooklyn. At first, I didn't see the Tribeca one. I just saw "Bubby's in Brooklyn" and thought, are we in Brooklyn? Is it really just a few blocks from the apartment? Tourist thoughts. Astoundingly ignorant tourist thoughts. Thoughts which I kept to myself at the time. Of course, now I'm putting them out there for the world to read, but I'm doing it from the safety of my home, where I can't see your eyes roll. Bubby's has very, very yummy banana nut pancakes, by the way.

Banana walnut pancakes are a fruit.

And a protein.

Then we went to the Frick. That's a museum. It's Uptown. We had to take the subway to Uptown to get there, that's how I know. They had these audio guides that looked like massively long phones, and you could play descriptions of the paintings at your own pace. Cool. Autonomous. Informative. Anti-social. But there were pretty things to look at.

Outside again, we wandered around looking at the amazing window displays, and saw the tree and skating rink at Rockefeller Center. It was all smaller than I'd imagined, but that made it seem quaint, an adjective that I wouldn't normally use when describing New York City. It was interesting for me to see the angels with the trumpets. In fifth grade I got a book of Christmas songs I could play on my trombone, and on the cover was a picture of those angels in twilight. After 21 years of looking at that cover and thinking it was beautiful, I finally saw them up close.

Next stop, the library. By this time I had a headache and just sat dumbly on a bench while the others looked at the Japanese exhibit. Then to a cute old-fashioned soda shop in Tribeca for dinner. I popped a couple Tylenol and put my head on the table until the food came, because I'm a big baby when I don't feel well. By the end of the meal, I was feeling better and was able to take in my surroundings. This place had lots of candy we remembered from our youth, including the incredibly politically incorrect -- and still tempting -- candy cigarettes. The girls got their favorite retro candy. S had this long, flat piece of taffy. It was pink and pretty and I wanted to see what kind of noise it would make. So I borrowed it and began slapping it against the table, in hopes of getting a nice *THWACK!* out of it. The normally calm and gentle S was not amused. "Slap your own taffy!" This may be the harshest rebuke I've received from her in two years of roommateness.

The taffy is now in her room, and I'm not supposed to mess with it. I have a different technique I want to try, though. I had been holding it on one end and swinging it at the table, but it was too flat and wind-resistant, and the result was insufficient thwackage. I should have placed my hand flat against one side and pushed it down as fast as I could. I bet that would work.

But I'm not supposed to.

But I bet it would work.