Parts of Me That Matter

I think the idea to visit every borough of NYC in one day has been over 4 years in the making. Which is kind of surprising, because my friend Rickard and I are really not known as procrastinators. We are pretty good at making things happen, even if it's just to be done with them. Check it off the list. Earn our bragging rights. Obtain our badges. Etc. 

Rickard came to NYC from Boston this past weekend. It was kind of a last-minute visit, so we didn't make any plans and on Saturday morning we found ourselves staring at google, wondering what to do. I thought the day might turn into one of those trips where you just kind of go from one restaurant to another, eating your way through the city. Not an adventure, but still fulfilling.

But before we could pick our first restaurant, Rickard turns to me and says: "Should we do our 5 borough tour?"

What is a 5 Borough Tour? Literally, we wanted to visit each borough (Staten Island, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens) in one day. And we wanted to something special in each borough. It was decided that we would "do something cultural" in each borough. Which was vague enough to do anything we could quickly find. 

As we were rushing out of the house, I grabbed a fake severed arm that I had bought for a Halloween outfit and stuffed it in my bag with the fingers sticking out. We wanted something weird to include in each photo we took as we documented our 5 Borough Tour.

Since Staten Island seemed the most laborious to get to, we immediately set out towards the ferry. As we sat on the subway train, we got down to business: how would we create a situation in which I could write a story for my He's A Lady blog. It would just be so perfect to be able to post about the 5 Borough Tour and how we got mistaken for 12 year old boys.

A few minutes after we discussed this, about ten 12 year olds walked on the train. We continued to catch up about our lives, when Rickard nudged me:

"I think those kids are confused by us."

I looked over and sure enough the kids were pointing and whispering about us. The girls went to the boys on the other side of the bench and made them come over and look at us. It was too good to be true. Maybe they would come up to us and we could discuss gender identity. Maybe they would say something outrageously cute and simple for me to quote. Maybe the possibilities were endless.

And then suddenly we noticed that they weren't exactly pointing at us, but at my bag sitting by my feet. My bag, with the fake severed arm, with the fingers sticking out ever so slightly. What was happening had nothing at all to do with our gender, they probably hadn't even looked at the owners of the severed arm. We laughed a bit at our foolishness and then decided to pretend like we were upset that the fingers were showing. Rickard put her jacket over my bag.

We reached the ferry stop, and as we left the train we heard one of the girls say:

"Bye-bye hand."