Garny's New York

A common preconception of New Yorkers is that they are rude, self-interested, misanthropes.  Well, most of the time this isn’t false. However, on this particular occasion I found that maybe there are New Yorkers that aren’t cut-throat and ruthless.

I had just finished an intense workout on my arms and I didn’t have any lunch, which was a big mistake. As I walked into the locker room, all sweaty with my arms pulsating and throbbing, barely breathing, I sat on the locker room bench to catch my breath. I sat there light headed and absolutely enervated wanting to grab a pillow, cut the lights out, stretch my legs and take a long nap right in the middle of the locker room floor. My friend, luckily for me, snatched me up from the fantasy that I was slowly drifting into. I dragged myself over to the rental locker and remembered that I had a protein powder ready to make a shake. I then woke myself up and began to put a sense of urgency in getting dressed. I got my protein shake ready and took a sip to get some kind of energy into my body. My friend I go to get some food at a restaurant I’ve never heard of before, he tells me it’s like a Chipotle. I’m on the brink of passing out so I’m willing to eat anything. We walk down Park Ave to meet the famous Dos Toros Taqueria that he was talking about. I was greeted by a large sign with a rustic background and Dos Toros glowing in fiery red. I walk in and my friend begins to order spitting out “Dos Toros” lingo, “bowl, guac, beans…”. I’m next and I point at what I want as if I can’t speak English. I get my food walk up to the register and get ready to pay. The lady asks me what did I get and I point at it and say “that”. She punches in the numbers and tells me “$10.86”. I pull out my debit card to pay for my food, like I always do, and she swipes it. Out of nowhere I hear someone scream “IT DECLINED”.

I’m clearly disoriented at this point as if someone threw a flashbang into the restaurant. I get to my senses and reach  for my phone to check my finances and realized that I lost my debit card earlier that day and locked it so that no one could swipe it and take advantage of my hard earned $72. Before I could explain the debacle of my life to the cashier lady she hands me a receipt reading $0.00 and says “it’s okay”. I couldn’t have been more grateful to this women who let me sit in this well established restaurant and eat their food for free. This women is clearly the needle in the haystack. She could have easily kicked me out, taken the food, and sold it to the next customer but instead she decided to let a poor, hungry college kid get some free food.

However like I stated before, a common preconception of New Yorkers is that they are rude, self-interested misanthropes and most of the time this isn’t false and I am a living testament of this statement as I didn’t even take the time to get this very generous lady’s name.

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