Every Monday, the New York Times runs a feature called the Metropolitan Diary (here), essentially a column for New York City residents and visitors to share conversations and anecdotes gleaned from their ever-interesting lives in the city. Each submission begins “Dear Diary”; uses the superfluous, overwritten prose of educated people who want to prove themselves as such; and usually involves an old person doing something snappy, a child doing something precocious, a working-class person doing something poignant, a tourist doing something embarrassing, or a fabulous person doing something fabulous.
I like the idea of the Metropolitan Diary. Our newspapers should not just be a forum for intelligent, erudite journalists and columnists who have something important to say. No, everyone should be able to report on the prosaicism of everyday life. I mean, really, that one of the guiding principles of my website.
Today, the leading diary entry concerns a woman who dropped her Chanel lip gloss in the subway tracks (here). And I really can’t decide if this was written in earnest or if its a sly parody on the moronically-pompous nature of many of the Metropolitan Diary submissions.
DEAR DIARY:
On a Friday night in early April, as I was going home, I dropped my favorite Chanel lip gloss down on the subway tracks at Spring Street. I asked the token booth man for help, thinking that with the clumsiness of some New Yorkers, the booths must have retrieval tools (like for golf balls in the lake), but no, they actually do not.
Although I’ve never owned a Chanel lip gloss (retail starting at $27), I can totally relate, because once I got a Lancome “Le Rouge Absolu” lipstick as a free gift along with my Lancome fragrance purchase. Oh, I adored this lipstick, not only for the Rose Petale shade that turned my normally pallid lips into plump, pouty pink, but for its replenishing Blistex-like smoothness. Then, one day, I accidentally put the cap on the tube before lowering the stick, smashing it to a pulp. The kicker: Rose Petale has been discontinued. If only life had a Undo button! Or retrieval tools, like in golf!
He called someone for help, possibly an associate or police officer. He told me to wait. Someone would come. So wait I did. And wait. Train after train passed by, and each time I saw my beloved lipstick still lying on the dirt all alone. But still no one came.
So get up get, get, get down. 911 is a joke in yo town.
I felt oddly hopeful throughout, though, as if the knight in shining armor wasn’t going to stand me up. It would be an utterly charming story; everyone on the platform would cheer, confirming faith in our civil servants. Alas, in real life, no one ever came.
I would cheer for a wedding ring, although there are no innocent reasons why someone would have removed their wedding ring on a subway platform. I would probably cheer for a wallet. Maybe a phone, if the owner didn’t look priggish.
Should I have jumped to retrieve it myself? Should I have known better than to wait? Or to have waited so long? Well, it is only lipstick, and it can be replaced. Broken bones, not so easily.
Hell yes, you should have jumped down to retrieve it yourself. That’s Chanel lip gloss, lady. God forbid you leave it there for the homeless or the civil servants to scavenge.
I got on the subway and headed home.
The next Tuesday night, purely on a whim, I went to the booth to check, and, my lip gloss was sitting right there, on the ledge in front of the token booth man! He didn’t even ask any questions, he just saw my incredulous smile, and graciously passed the lip gloss to me through the window.
Jennifer Freed
Sniffle. Cue Adagio for Strings. Oh, gosh, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, but I can’t help it. I love happy endings.
