God don't like ugly

I don't get to watch a lot of TV. I prefer watching a movie and I almost always knit through it. I do watch Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report and the occasional network news performances but for hard news, I prefer to get serious analysis from the internets. There is one tiny exception to all of this, I watch Larry David when I want to laugh out loud.

Well, last Friday night, my boys didn't have any scheduled basketball so what did they want to do with all of their spare time? Go see some basketball. I managed to get last minute, cheap Knick tickets (yes, they do suck) and I grabbed my knitting bag and we rushed for the 6:50 to New York City.



It was on the trip home, that I got some excitement. When former New Yorkers are sequestered too long in sterile suburbia, we tend to marvel at the pageantry of strangers. So when this lady grabs a seat across from us with this little chihuahua tucked in a bag, I perked up and got ready for the show. As she fussed over the dog getting him comfortable, I noticed that she and the dog had matching knitwear! My children are always eyeing me when we are in public. They like to get some indicator before they think I'm going to embarrass them. My sons saw me looking at the lady and noticed the knitted garments too, gave me the signal - "pleeeeze don't say anything to that lady about her and her dog's scarf."

"I'm not going to say anything but can I at least admire it?"

Then the lady pulled out a book on Freida Kahlo. I just thought the whole thing was so cool so I started to take pictures. My children, who only lived in New York for a couple of years, had the nerve to tell me that I was being rude and that everybody knows that you don't take pictures of strangers without their permission. I told him that those rules don't apply in New York. Wink, wink.

They begged me to put the camera down. I obeyed only because at that moment I remembered that Larry David episode, Rat Dog and I started to laugh out loud!

The boys knew exactly what I was laughing at as if they dreaded the moment when I would see the coincidence beyond the knitting and told me to be quiet. I told them that as a former New Yorker, I knew personally that people can be anything they wanted, act anyway they wanted and certainly laugh at anything they wanted without the fear of drawing attention to oneself. So there.

They were rescued by the conductor who called our stop and the boys bolted for the doors. I hurried after them and LEFT MY CAMERA ON THE SEAT!!! Fortunately, a man ran off the train with it and kindly handed it to me. I stood there in shock, the end of my photographic life flashing before me.

That's when my son, not missing a beat, said, "tsk tsk, I guess God don't like ugly."


Where do children get the nerve?? Anyhooo, how can you not take pictures of that face!