NYC, the city that wants to make you cry

The thing about living in New York is, some days the city kicks your ass. Saturday, it beat the crap out of me.

I started my journey at 10:15am, Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee in one hand, Haunted in the other, and a backpack containing sunscreen, a towel and some trashy magazines. My destination? The World Financial Center, where Nicola would pick me up in her car at 11 for the drive out to Brighton Beach.

I hopped the F Train to West 4th Street, where I intended to transfer to the E, which I would take to the World Trade Center. No E running, but as it turns out, the A was making all local stops. Except it wasn't, because it went to Brooklyn.

At High Street in Brooklyn, I got off and tried to figure out how to get to where I was going. My only option was to take the train to Broadway/Nassau and walk. Which was fine, but I was running really late. As Nicola is always late, I wasn't sweating it too hard.

There was a dance party on the A, attended by about 20 teenagers. Loud hip-hop music boomed from a stereo. Beer was passed around, and often spilled all over the floor. I couldn't concentrate on my book. Thankfully, I only had to go one stop, but when I got up to exit the train, I slipped on some beer. I didn't fall, but slipped enough to cause the entire train full of teenagers to start howling like it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. Suddenly, I felt like I was 12 and getting picked on at school, and I kind of wanted to cry.

I got off the train and my cell phone started vibrating. It was Nicola, freaking out because I wasn't there yet and the security guards at the World Financial Center kept telling her she had to move her car. I arrived five minutes later and realized that, since we hadn't done the drive since last summer, we couldn't remember how to get there. So we winged it. When we were close, we asked a Russian man in the car next to us where the beach was. He yelled at us. Okay, he didn't really yell at us, he was just being Russian. But then we found parking! And bought delicious food! And found a great spot on the beach! The day was turning around.

Then I got a sunburn. Then, just as Nicola was about to drop me off right outside the Battery Tunnel, it started to pour. I didn't know where the nearest subway was, so I wandered until I stumbled across the 1 train at Rector. I needed to stop at the T-Mobile store at Astor Place, because I'd lost my charger, but there's no way to get there via the 1 save for the L, which wasn't running. I hoped it would stop raining by the time I hit 14th Street, and hopped on the very, very crowded train.

The train got more crowded as we headed uptown, and because people are assholes, they started piling on at 14th Street before letting people off the train. One guy was particularly pushy, and because he looked like Gareth on The Office, I instantly hated him.

"Dude," I said. "How about letting people get off the train before you start pushing your way on?"

"No shit, asshole," he replied. Which was odd, because he was basically agreeing with me but yet, still pushing his way on the train. I gave him a look and pushed my way through a space to his right.

Then, as I was getting off the train, he pushed me. He fucking pushed me. Some dick in a suit who had just committed one of the worst offenses against train riders everywhere, pushed me. And that was it. I was defeated.

The thing about getting your ass kicked by the city you live in is, it puts you in your place. You live here long enough, and you start to think you're tough. That you can handle anything. Then, one rainy afternoon, you're walking home, humbled.