enough to make a brother want to move to minnesota

sorry not much activity on this site lately ... not much activity with the nice guys worth reporting, frankly. yesterday, however, we did take the little monster in to have her nose electrocuted again. treatment number two. there was no reprieve this time. the event itself was less traumatic that the first zapping. we knew she would scream, we knew she would then nurse and pass promptly out. all good. and then her nose splotch would turn black and gradually the appearance of the hemangioma would subside. all old hat. no problemo.

the day's drama actually occurred on the subway there and then the taxi ride home. (of course, if you were to ask the baby, she would tell you that the drama of the day occurred neither in the subway, a ride she rather enjoyed, or the taxi, a ride she slept through. no the drama for her was getting eight thousands watts of laser fired up her nostril).

so there we were, the happy family, riding the subway to see the doctor who would assault our child. baby was in mrs nice guy's lap looking around. minding her own business. then it happened. it started as a loud disembodied voice: "ladies and gentlemen, i am sorry to bother you today. but i am not on drugs, i am not a drunk. i am a homeless widow and mother asking you for a little compassion today. god bless you." all eyes on the train instantly went straight to the ground. nobody acknowledged this poor homeless lady, because frankly, who knows what her real story is and anyway we just want to ride the subway in peace. so i applied myself to my new favorite hobby of attempting to make my daughter smile. the loud homeless lady made her way to our end of the train, cup in hand. nobody gave her any money and she left them largely unmolested. she merely proceeded down the train "god bless. any help you can give would be appreciated. god bless."

and then she spotted our daughter.

suddenly insane homeless lady: OOOH LOOK AT THE LITTLE ANGEL BABY! LOOK AT THOSE CHEEKS! HOW OLD IS SHE?
mrs nice guy (because i for one refused to even acknowledge this grinning loon, hovering menacingly over my family): eleven weeks.
insane homeless lady, leaning ever closer in: LOOK AT HER LITTLE CHEEKS! SUCH AN AAAANGEL. WHAT IS THAT ON HER NOSE?
mrs nice guy, trying desperately to make this person go away by being ice cold and very blunt: a tumor.
insane homeless lady: OH POOR THING! LOOK AT HER LITTLE CHUBBY HANDS!

and then, ladies and gentlemen, this insane homeless subway train lady reached out and TOUCHED MY DAUGHTER'S HAND. oh fuck, i thought, now she has the clap. worse: i felt every individual muscle fiber in mrs nice guy's body immediately constrict in physics-defying tension. a rampaging fire flared up in her eyes. the other riders on the train, who had until this point been watching the interaction in bemused there-but-for-the-grace-of-god detachment, suddenly sucked all the air out of the train. about 100 people thought to themselves "oh no she di'n't!"

but, yes. she did.

mrs nice guy hugged the baby a little closer to her and, sporting a clenched, cold smile, said nothing, but managed nonetheless to telepathically communicate to this woman that if she came within a molecule of touching her daughter again, the MTA would be cleaning tiny bits of insane homeless subway lady out from every nook of the train for months to come. the insane homeless lady went on her merry insane way to the next car on the train.

(just to prove i am not a despicable yuptard who hates the homeless: on the elevator leaving the doctor's office some nice man in a suit reached out and touched the baby's foot. mrs nice guy actually whimpered out loud -- everyone in the crowded elevator turned to look at her. the nice besuited man did not touch the child again. (he did, however, steal my cab home! fucker!))

as i mentioned in the paragraph above, i took a cab home with the baby. mrs nice guy ventured out into the city to ditch her family long enough to get drunk and laid run some errands while i escorted the dozing post-laser-attack baby home. (a word about manhattan cab drivers: they don't like taking people into brooklyn--even though it is ILLEGAL to turn a rider away--because it's hard to pick up another fare. also, lots of them are just dicks.) with slumbering child in the back seat, our cab hurtled at egregiously reckless speeds towards the manhattan bridge. at the entrance to the bridge, we came to a light. so the cab driver stopped. he got out of his car and walked up to the cab in front of us. he talked to the driver. he came back to our car and got in. he said "i am not taking you to brooklyn. i have to be somewhere in the bronx. the cab in front of you will take you the rest of the way."

mr nice guy: are you fucking joking me?
assfucking cab driver: i am sorry.
mr nice guy: i have a baby! you would do this to someone with a baby?
assfucking cab driver: no. see the fare is $9. i will only charge you 6.
mr nice guy: how about i pay you a GO FUCK YOURSELF.
assfucking cab driver: please. only $6. i am sorry. i cannot take you to brooklyn.

not wanting to fight or, for that matter, to have to kill him and then go to jail where i would almost certainly get gang raped because of my pretty mouth, i handed him six bucks. i did say the word "fuck" as much as humanly possible, especially when the entire contents of my wallet spilled onto the chinatown sidewalk. oh, the despair! i just wanted to get my sleeping time-bomb baby home before she erupted into windshield-shattering screams of rage and hate. so i scurried over to the waiting cab in front of us. the new cab driver was very nice and very accommodating towards me, my baby and my loathing for his fellow assfucking new york city cabdrivers, who, incidentally, should take note: i gave the nice cab driver who took me home a FREAKISHLY HUGE ELEPHANTINE TIP.

the nose-blackened baby slept all the way home. before waking up and not sleeping again for hours and hours and hours and hours.