signs of ghetto

This weekend I was out with a couple friends at a bar in my neighborhood when I had a realization. I am extremely ghetto.

I sat with my friend "Simon" and poured the vodka from my pocket flask into my club soda and started to think about many things in my life that are equally as ghetto.

I looked up from my bartending only to see that there was a male go-go dancer preparing for a night of "doing his thing" on the old wooden bar. There he was, stretching out his arms and legs on the DJ booth. In between stretches, some friends helped him to draw a tattoo of an anchor (apparently he was going with a sailor theme on this particular night) on his bicep.

At the end of night, my friends and I were waiting to hail a cab when we came across five young males also looking to do the same. As we watched them split up their group because the cabby wouldn't allow five people, we all began commenting on what dumbasses they were for not doing the "5th person hide behind the car and dive in unnoticed" maneuver that we are all too familiar with.

Piggy backing on this theme, the other day I was running late for work (okay, everyday), when I passed the usual entourage of homeless men huddled near the entrance of the subway, where one of them was peeing on the steps of the bank. How lovely I thought, as I rushed down the stairs to catch the train. After realizing that my metro card was expired (what great timing!) I attempted to buy a new monthly pass. Adding insult to injury was the fact that the machines were not excepting credit or debit cards. Just great I thought, I usually only have about $1 in cash on me at any given time. To my surprise I actually found a $20 dollar bill in my wallet, not sure where that came from? With another twist of luck the subway attendant even had change to offer me so I wouldn't receive $18 in Susan B. Anthony coins to toss in my bag.

After this debacle was over, I run down another flight of stairs to find a train approaching and what looks to be about twenty minutes worth of angry commuters ready to aggressively pile on. As I am left standing on the platform, unable to weasel my way aboard, some bitch who got on looks at me with her most insincere puppy dog eyes and says "sorry." At this point I take a step back and think Oh, now I'm getting on this train, and then proceed to jump towards the open doors and crowd surf my way onto the packed car. I am pretty sure that I spent the entire trip without my feet touching the floor and my head in the crotch of the old polish woman who works at the corner deli. Joy. She looked and smelled of cured meats. Who needs perfume when you are basting in pastrami all day?

At work, I polish off my daily peanut butter sandwich, peruse the halls for leftover meeting food and make my third cup of work coffee. At the end of the day I head home and hit up the local grocery story which sells milk that expires in four days, sour yogurt and no longer carries my Skippy natural peanut butter (Bastards!). As I lug my groceries home to my five roommates, I have to quickly stop at the ATM to withdrawal several hundreds of dollars to pay rent, as it needs to be paid in cash. Safety comes to mind as I step over the sleeping homeless people inside the bank, kudos to you Bank of America for maintaining such high standards! I get home, pop in some microwave vegetables, tally up the rent and head up to my shoe box sized bedroom.

There, I put away the iron, which has now completely separated into 2 pieces after being dropped so many times, pull the towel off my bed where I had done the ironing, and gently re-fold the clothes from the previous day. The pits didn't smell like sweat after all, so I can definitely get another wear out of them! I gently fall asleep to the sound of water bong hits and Nintendo Wii.

Ghet-to. What has this city done to me?