Getting My City Self On in Manhattan

So here I am in New York City, staying with a dear friend in Midtown as she recuperates from a long hospital stay. It’s been awhile since I’ve spent time in the city, so I’ve regressed in my street smarts, reverting to my persona as “country mouse in the city.”

Fortunately, I have a sense of humor or I would be humiliated by my ignorance of some things Manhattan. The first night here, I heard the reception buzzer and my friend said: “ Just say hello and they’ll tell you why they are buzzing.” So I said, loudly, “hello” in the direction of the apartment’s front door, forgetting that there is phone on the wall where one answers calls from the doorman. We all got a good laugh and have since told the story to visitors who’ve enjoyed the recounting of my ignorance.

Then there was my visit to the nearby Gristedes market. I thought I was quite city-savvy when I remembered to take my friend’s rolling shopping cart to bring back the goods.

At the store, my ignorance of local custom reasserted itself and I dragged the shopping cart behind me up and down the narrow aisles as I pushed the store’s grocery cart in front of me. I hope none of my fellow shoppers had their phones in video mode as I tried awkwardly to hold on to both carts. I suspect there were movements that mimicked scenes from the Three Stooges movies. At one point I had to quickly prop one cart against the shelves so I could chase the other as it escaped my grasp and rolled down a sloped aisle. New York markets don’t have those broad, flat aisles we have in the suburbs.

Only at the end of my grocery store visit did I ask the woman at the register if I could park my personal shopping cart at the front of the store during future shopping visits. My Mama would be so proud that I was too polite to assume I could stick my cart anywhere I wanted as the clerk suggested. Mama’s attempts to raise a nice girl in the South were so often thwarted by my tomboy behavior in childhood and here I am now being such a courteous adult.

Despite my foibles, I have managed to find both the grocery store as well as the neighborhood Duane Reed location for pharmacy items. While I seem to require instruction at both places, I am getting the hang of it, however humbling the process. A clerk in the drug store was actually reasonably calm when she said, “Ma’am, you don’t put the basket on the counter, just the products you are purchasing.” The fact that a line of locals was behind me in the queue, rolling their eyes and sighing as my lesson in basket management took up their precious time, was only mildly humiliating.

Growing up in the South, we were taught that Yankees, particularly those in New York City, were neither polite nor well-mannered. I must say that I don’t find that true. Despite the fact that I move too slowly for most pedestrians on the sidewalk and make cabbies wait as I walk across the street, I have found that questions asked, however naïve, are answered. Advice is given, usually kindly enough, prefaced by a “Hey, lady” rather than something less flattering.

And, when each little adventure out onto the streets ends, the doorman is quick to open the door of our building with a smile and a word of greeting. That’s something to which I look forward every time.