I Heart New York 3

There's an antique store in my neighborhood that I walk by all the time. Dressers and fake flowers spill out onto the sidewalk. Lots of painted wood and wicker. Mirrors and watering cans and big price tags on everything.

I hate that store.

I've never been inside, and it's not that I have anything against antiques, but this one particular store pisses me off. Everything is overpriced. And I don't mean boutiquey overpriced, I mean $100-for-a-baby-stool overpriced. And it's normal-ass stuff. Not hand-carved. Not intricately painted. The kind of stuff you'd find in your grandparents' barn. It's just unconscionable.

Earlier today, J and I happened to be walking by this particular pastel outpost of capitalistic evil and, as we do, pointed out the most overpriced thing we could spot - $75 step ladder! $150 hand mirror! -as we passed.

In front of us, two Puerto Rican lesbians were walking hand in hand. The sidewalk was really narrow and they were doing that ghetto slow/wide wandering thing that can be infuriating if you get caught behind and have someplace to be. No matter how close you get, or how loud you talk in their ear, they don't let you pass. They just stroll, strung out along the pavement like in a poster for The Wild Bunch.

J and I weren't really in a hurry, but as soon as a break in the parked cars allowed, we slipped past them. Now they were behind us, and as the gap between us widened we heard, "Seventy-five dollars! I mean, nobody'd be so stupid, spend seventy-five dollars on that shit. That's shit people leave out on the street. Put some paint on a chair, gonna charge something like that."

They were shit-talking the antique store, too.

Which is why I love New York. Because it reminds me that wide-walking Puerto Rican lesbians and I have more in common than just our skin color.