Leftovers

Last night, around midnight, a brunette woman whose face I remember as square and featureless, approaches me quite directly, pointing to one of a long list of what appear to be all the yarn stores in the Tri-state area. "Is this close?" she asks bluntly, pointing to an address that clearly says STATEN ISLAND. I gently tell her no, that she could take the ferry and then wander around for hours, but maybe she should try this one, on 34th street. Her eyes light up a little. "Ooh, is that near Macy's? How do I get there from Macy's?" I try to tell her that I don't know the exact address of Macy's, but maybe when she gets down to 34th st., she'll be able to read the address numbers and figure out which direction to go. She doesn't want to hear this, and tries to make things more confusing. "So do I go left or right from Macy's?" Finally, I just look up the address for Macy's. Then I try to explain to her that since the address for the sewing store on 34th st. is lower than the address for Macy's that means it's closer to 5th Ave, to the middle of the island. I can tell she feels pleased to be privy to this bit of insider info, even though I know, from experience, that she doesn't understand it, and she sort of wanders off to bed.

Fast forward to the morning, 10 am, who knows why I'm still here, when the woman comes in off the street (somehow I don't remember her leaving), and abruptly asks,"How do I get to 12th Avenue and Chinatown?" I'm totally loopy at this point, so I can't quite stop myself from laughing in her face and I loudly make one of those laugh-catching sounds.

After I understandingly tell her why that's impossible, she gets out a napkin and pen and says, "Okay, one last thing." She draws a dot on the napkin. "Here's Macy's. How do I get to the yarn store?"