“Why didn’t you ask the concierge?!??!?”
Picture a scene: two pleasant gentlemen stroll the sidewalks of midtown Manhattan. Newlyweds (of a kind), they have come to the City in search of amusement and rest. Walking now, they seek a decent place to get a bite to eat.
The scene repeats itself. It happens in the evening. It happens at midday. Thrice the scene repeats.
Their garments vary. The direction of their wandering varies.
Constant, however, is one’s refrain. It is an irritated refrain, spoken to the other with increasing ire at each repetition of the scene.
“Why didn’t you ask the concierge?!??!?”
Their hotel, you see, has a desk at which polite and helpful people sit. The people have no job but to enhance the enjoyment of the City for those staying in the hotel. Perhaps they secure a reservation at a nice restaurant. Or book tickets for a show. Or point out events and destinations of interest. All to help those visiting this storied metropolis have a better time.
Indeed, our couple has stopped by this desk to speak with the polite and helpful people a time or two. Recommendations were made, to the couple’s satisfaction. Stopping by the desk has been a good decision every time it was so decided.
Sadly, one member of the couple does not avail himself of the help available at the desk as often as he could. Because, you see, the people at the desk are there to help guests who don’t know their damn way around the City. People who need help. And what possible help could he need finding a place for lunch, when any New Yorker worth his MetroCard can step onto the streets of Manhattan and find a good place within the span of a few blocks? Sure, fine. He hasn’t actually lived in New York for the better part of a decade now, but that hardly matters. A New Yorker he is in his heart, and will always be.
You know who needs the concierge? Tourists. Tourists need the concierge. And he’ll be damned if he’s going to act like a tourist in his own fishin’ City. And sure, OK. Maybe he can’t remember which subway lines go where any longer. Maybe he doesn’t know what kind of shoes fashionable people are wearing these days. Maybe he must tamp down the demons in his mind that say “Y’know, Times Square is pretty cool to look at if you think about it.” Maybe he’s gotten a little rusty.
But he doesn’t need to ask the concierge where to go for an after-theater meal! NO! Let the people visiting from Iowa do that!
And so our couple wanders. Once our reluctant friend is enjoined by his husband to get over himself and go back and ask the concierge, which results in a recommendation for a nearby place where they have a very nice dinner. Twice they keep wandering unaided, finally arriving at places that serve food which are… sufficient.
And so that is this week’s Question: what truths do you refuse to acknowledge? Which trousers still hang in your closet despite your inability to pack yourself into them for quite some time now? Which critically-acclaimed shows accumulate on your DVR, waiting for the time you will choose to start watching them instead of reruns of “Family Guy”? Which fancy gadgets collect dust in a forgotten corner of your kitchen as you reach for the take-out menus?
The fishery that generations of my family made a (hard) living on and that was sputtering out when I was a lad is now gone. My ancestral home is virtually abandoned and if I visited it I’d find it all falling down (but still beautiful, heart achingly brutally beautiful).
I’ll never be able to truly accept that. Despite having literally just typed it out my heart is telling me with absolute confidence that the Island is still there, the old timers are still fishing and I could go back to visit any time. My Grandmother is still there too, waiting to give me a baked haddock and some homemade bread.Report