Dog Day Afternoon

Who says you can't laugh at yourself? Heartily.

BARKING DOGS

I'm not usually shy, but facing a set of bleachers crammed with cranky baseball fans can give the bravest barker reason to pause.

It was a hot and sunny Sunday at Coney Island's KeySpan Park, and the ­Brooklyn Cyclones were gearing up for another home game. Decked out in a painfully yellow shirt and a blue apron stuffed with my cash roll and extra napkins, I squared my shoulders, adjusted my hold on the steaming metal bin of dogs and took a deep breath.

"Hot dawgs!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "Get yer hot dawgs!"

I have no idea where the accent came from. I blame the uniform.

But with hot dogs at $3.25 apiece, not everyone was buying - especially since there'd been a 25-cent special on the Nathan's famous franks I was hawking in the hour before the first pitch.

"I got your hot dogs right here, honey!" yelled one wise guy as his buddies laughed. But as five-year veteran vendor Denis Shiman advised, you just let it roll off your back, along with the sweat.

My own dog day afternoon started out well - my first customer flagged me down for 10 franks. That was more than half of the 19 dogs I was looking to sell!

Alas, I couldn't figure out the change from $40 when the order cost $32.50. The woman glared at me as she passed the dogs to her sons. Her husband was more upfront. "Is this your first day, or what?" Yes, actually. I considered telling them I have a master's degree.

I dropped quarters. My napkins flew everywhere. I forgot how much the hot dogs cost - even though I was wearing the price on my shirt. I didn't have enough change for one customer and actually left him - with unpaid product - while I begged for smaller bills off another vendor.

After half an hour selling 19 hot dogs at 10% commission, I walked out with $6.18 (plus an additional $8 in sympathetic tips). With my hard-earned clams, I finally snagged a hot dog for myself. My manic afternoon was worth every savory bite.
- Nicole Lyn Pesce

A.C., or not A.C.

At about this time each summer, I start turning a more interested eye towards those P.C. Richards and Circuit City fliers that I normally toss out. You know, the ones advertising air conditioning units.

The battle in my mind goes something like this:

Nic, you're either at work or out with friends for at least two-thirds of each day. You don't need A.C. in your room. You're only in there to sleep. The fan is good enough for the likes of you, and look, it's already almost August. You'll be pulling out the down comforter again in no time.

And while I'm at work actually wrapping myself up in a cardigan because the cooling system is cranked full-throttle, it's easy to chide myself for whining about sweating a little before I fall asleep each night.

But then I get home. And I drag myself up the stairs in my fifth-floor walk up. And I turn the key and walk in a wall of stale, hot air in my apartment that's actually worse than the stuffy stairwell. Stripping out of my work duds and into shorts and planting myself in front of a fan gives no relief. And don't even get me started about trying to fall asleep. The only positive, I suppose, is that I don't oversleep anymore. I don't even have to set the alarm. The past two days of this mini-heatwave (a harbinger of good times to come) I've been up at a quarter after six because it's just too hot to sleep anymore.

That's when the counter-arguments start racing around my head.

Dammit, Nicole. You deserve to be able to sleep peacefully. You shouldn't need to stop for a water break after simply making the bed or hanging a shirt. You could probably pick up an A.C. unit for the same amount of dough you happily spend at Starbucks in a given month. Or surely you can beg/borrow/steal one from one of your relatives or friends. Why put up with this year after year after year? Even if it is a great excuse not to cook?

So the mid-July debate continues. A.C., or not A.C?

It really shouldn't even be a question. My roommates each have a unit in their rooms and sleep much better. Then again, I get a kick out of being the smug asshole who chips in the least when we divvy up the electric bill, since I'm using less energy.

I go all cheap on the absolute stupidest things.

Growing Pangs

I called the Momster just a few days before July 4th to announce I was coming home for a few days. As I tend to avoid Long Island for weeks at a time (if I can help it) I considered this to be A Big Deal.

"I'm going out on the Fourth," Mom apologized. "And I'm working Thursday and Friday."

Rats. My family drives me absolutely bugshit most of the time, but I do like hanging out with my Mom. I'd looked forward to her whipping up another batch of those raspberry margaritas and vegging on the couch with me watching "Weeds."

Thwarted, I attempted to make small talk, asking her how the kids are. If you weren't aware, dear reader, (because I literally have ONE friend who still reads my blog, at this point, due to negligence) I am the oldest of four siblings. My brothers are 20 and 21. The sister is newly-17, going on six.

There was some idle chatter about Chelsea's haircut and Kevin pulling extra shifts at the ice cream parlor. "Sean's in Boston," she added offhand, referring to the 21-year-old aspiring musician brother.

"Oh, for how long?" I asked.

"He lives there," Mom said.

So this is how I learn that my brother has moved to Boston, and no one in my family, including said-brother, felt the need to tell me.

This is what we call putting the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional.'

So I spluttered and got indignant, and asked how long he'd been there, how he'd gotten there, did he have a j-o-b there, etc. I think I received answers to those questions ... but if you offered me money, I probably couldn't answer any of them for you, because even a week later, it still boggles the mind that my brother allegedly grew up. Although I do know he's working in a recording studio. So that's nice.

So! If that was any foreshadowing, my three-day visit home was equally frustrating and confusing. I hit up the annual Kimler Fourth of July BBQ at my best friend Andrew's house -- conveniently around the block from my Mom's -- and that was a hoot, but a middle-aged neighbor actually heckled me while I was playing beer pong, and I guess I got inebriated because everyone was calling me "Drunkie" the next day. Which really isn't fair, because I managed to neither hit nor hit ON anyone, and can clearly remember the evening's events with crystal-clear accuracy (if only I'd been as similarly sharp during beer pong. Alas.) Obviously, suburban and urban partying are very distant cousins. And what seems normal in Manhattan, on Long Island seems insane.

Cut to my ending up working from home the next day because of some last-minute newser-snafu which left me stuck in the house juggling the phone and the computer with the dogs ... followed by a similarly claustrophobic Friday because no one else on Long Island wanted to go to the beach on the beautiful, beautiful July afternoon ... and with only a smattering of words with the two remaining sibs and maybe 20 minutes all-told with my Mom ... it was just a confusing sojourn. I wonder if this is some post quarter-life crisis that all 20-somethings hit at some point: You go back to your parents' house, and not only is your room gone, but rather than roll out the red carpet for your triumphant return, you're lucky if the fridge is even stocked or your sister kisses you good-bye before she scurries off to the mall (she didn't even mooch money off me, as she usually does.)

The hometown had become like some alternate universe. They even tore down the house across the street!

To my amusement, it was rather a relief to escape from the two-story Long Island abode to my cramped and rather sweltering Spanish Harlem pad later Friday night and collapse safely into my own bed. (I'd been even too disgruntled and self-absorbed earlier that day to properly enjoy "Ratatouille.")

But then again, despite the fact that my DVDs are still in milk crates (said-crates smuggled from behind an actual deli, not plucked overpriced from Ikea) and the furniture doesn't match (yet), it's *my* apartment (yes, with two roommates, I haven't forgotten.) My room is set my way, I have food *I* like in the kitchen (as in plenty of Raisin Bran and no mayonnaise in sight), I don't have to fight (much) over the remote or the tunes ... it's where I hang my hat. It's my own space, that I pay for with my own hard-earned bucks, few and far between as those may be.

Years ago, the city shone with that transient, temporary charm that college had always offered. A fun place to visit, and while I was here I could get into all the trouble I wanted, and mom & pops never needed to find out ... and at the end of each semester, I'd return to East Meadow and chafe under the parentals' rules and roof, and that was that. But I've been in NYC for three years now, and somewhere along the line, *this* became my permanent address. "Home" is now really just the place I visit.

Ugh.

Even almost three bottles of wine with Jackie, Kim and Rosemary in Central Park on Saturday night couldn't quite wash away the unsettling taste of pseudo-adulthood in my mouth. Emphasis on the "pseudo."

But then again, maybe when I visit next time, I can commandeer Sean's room. And Mom can whip up margaritas (or her famous mojitos) and I can smuggle some more of Chelsea's perfume in between doing frantic loads of laundry for free.

I guess I'll always return, because at the end of the day, it's family, and we really can't help ourselves.

Hell, even Sean is bound to come back, some time.