How Do You Deal With a Mooch in NYC?

... Hopefully, better than I am.

The Scenario
The Mooch moved to New York City from Arizona in the last week of December in 2008. The Mooch shares a full-size bed with my roommate, who has been a close friend of hers since high school. The Mooch does not allow my roommate's own dog sit on or sleep in my roommate's own bed in the apartment for which The Mooch does NOT share equal financial responsibility. The Mooch's best friend lives in Harlem, but - regarding location - our Hell's Kitchen apartment is more convenient for The Mooch. The Mooch still lives with us (note the date of this blog post).

The Error
The direct fault I carry in this situation was believing that the best friend of The Mooch - and mutual friend of ours - was completely out of line for initially wanting to charge The Mooch $600/month to share the mutual friend's $1200-studio in Harlem. I wrongfully thought that the mutual friend was trying to take advantage of The Mooch's unstable relocation situation and wanted to profit from having The Mooch stay with her. In all actuality, the mutual friend was fairly requesting upfront that The Mooch assume equal financial responsibility for the space they would have shared. She was well within her rights - as both a New Yorker and as a friend.

However, my roommate and I - initially and foolishly finding it harsh to charge The Mooch immediately upon her arrival in the city (even though millions of other NYC transplants begin paying outrageous amounts for a roof over their heads the moment they change their zip code) - offered to let The Mooch stay in our Midtown apartment under the following conditions:
1) She could stay with us as long as she needed.
2) She could sleep in my roommate's bed (with my roommate) regularly; she and her boyfriend could sleep on my couch whenever he wanted to stay over; she and her boyfriend could use my room whenever I was out of town as long as they washed the sheets before I returned.
3) She should start contributing financially as soon as she could.

Number 3 was where we went wrong. The Mooch moved in the last week of December in 2008. By May 2009, she had still been unable to secure full-time employment, yet refused to consider waitressing, retail or other gigs not befitting "a recent college graduate." By June 2009, she had been living with us rent-free for five months.

Things I Now Know Since The Mooch Moved in Six Months Ago
1) After one month - or even just two weeks of staying in our $2500-month, 600-square foot, two-bedroom apartment in Midtown - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
2) Once she began forwarding her mail and listing our address on West 51st Street as her own - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
3) Once I began overhearing her tell friends on the phone, "I'm back at my apartment now," - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
4) Once she began asking me and my roommate if her out-of-town friends could stay at our apartment during their NYC visit - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
5) Once The Mooch stopped allowing my roommate's own dog into my roommate's own bed - The Mooch was no longer a guest; she was living with us.
6) I should not have assumed that The Mooch would have a personal sense of self-accountability for the space she shared with us.
7) I should not have assumed that this said self-accountability would compel The Mooch to feel responsible for contributing to the rent within 1-2 months (maybe even three, tops).
8) I should have been clear on my expectations instead of assuming that The Mooch had the same sense of personal responsibility that I have (e.g. when I slept on an air mattress for three months in the living room of my best friend's $1000-South Bronx, two-bedroom apartment, I contributed $200/month toward their rent, bringing their equal portions to $400/month each, and I took it upon myself to keep toilet paper, paper towels and other "communal items" fully stocked over the three months I stayed there).
9) The Mooch once tried to pretend that she didn't know we were out of trash bags, even though someone had emptied the trash can half way to make more room instead of buying more trash bags (and my roommate told me that she had not touched the trash). The Mooch also often acted like she didn't have to buy more toilet paper because she bought the "last round". She'd rather substitute travel tissue paper, napkins and paper towels while waiting for me or my roommate to get the next round of TP, which always made me want to scream, "Dude! You live here rent free! We shouldn't be taking turns buying the toilet paper; you should always buy it!" But I didn't.
10) My roommate and I are enabling The Mooch to have no sense of urgency to find permanent, full-time employment, to have no need to pick up a second part-time job after finally obtaining a full-time job with a low salary in late-May, and to take a week of unpaid leave from said low-salary employment to go on vacation with her boyfriend to Aruba in June. Rather than help her develop into a proud, independent New Yorker, we allow her to spend her money frivolously instead of paying a fair portion of the rent. Meanwhile my roommate and I continue to make careful decisions and sacrifices in order to sustain our lives in New York City. We are enabling The Mooch to do things that most middle- and lower-income people cannot do when they first relocate to New York City.
11) The Mooch moved in with my roommate and I just six months after we began our $2500-month lease on West 51st Street. Just like the mutual friend in Harlem was within her rights to expect rent immediately from The Mooch upon her relocation from Arizona, we would have been within our rights to ask her to split our $3000-broker fee three ways and divide the monthly rent fairly between us. If we had known that The Mooch was going to end up staying over half a year (not to mention the $5000-security deposit and first and last month's rent that my roommate and I paid up front), we would have expected an equal contribution.
12) I was wrong for denigrating the mutual friend for wanting to charge The Mooch half the rent on her $1200-Harlem studio.
13) I am a coward for blogging about this instead of telling The Mooch how I really feel.

Things The Mooch Does Not Know That We Know
1) The Mooch, who relocated from Arizona, is using my roommate and I to live closer to her boyfriend, who lives with his parents in Long Island. She doesn't want to contribute financially to our current living situation because she wants to save money while waiting for him to be ready to move into an apartment with her. So she is using us to be closer to him and foster their relationship until he is ready for cohabitation.
2) When The Mooch goes shopping with another mutual friend, that mutual friend reports back that The Mooch throws away her receipts, shopping bags and boxes and hides her new purchases in a large purse or tote bag because she doesn't want my roommate and I to know she has been shopping.
3) After searching craigslist job postings for about 20 minutes a day, she walked leisurely around the city throughout most of the spring months, with Starbucks coffee in hand, accompanied by the same mutual friend mentioned in #2 - instead of visiting more temp agencies, going door to door with her resume, and looking for jobs (however, she knows that we know not to even ask her to consider the food service industry even though we live in the heart of Hell's Kitchen and mere steps from the plethora of restaurants on Ninth Avenue).
4) The Mooch bought her boyfriend a $350-camera for his recent birthday, but led us to believe that she could only afford to bake him a cake.
5) The Mooch had just learned of her boyfriend's disloyal indiscretions a few weeks prior to his birthday - thus proving that she'd rather buy her cheating boyfriend a present than pay rent to her more-than-generous friends.
6) We were willing to do more for The Mooch than her own family was willing (case in point: her own brother and his new wife live on the Upper East Side and would not have allowed her to crash with them for half a year, rent-free).
7) The Mooch doesn't want to live in New York City. She wants to be a merry, little housewife, and her current boyfriend is the best - and maybe only - shot she'll ever have at achieving her marital, baby-making dreams.*
8) People who really want to succeed in New York City are willing to wait tables or fold T-shirts in a GAP or do whatever it takes to be self-sufficient. She is not one of those people. She shamelessly continues to take advantage of a generous living situation despite the fact that I am making it clear that she has worn out her welcome.

To be fair, The Mooch is relatively easy to live with. She is clean, she didn't often leave her stuff all over the apartment (though I often tidy up after her), and she is generally friendly. However, I initially became irritated when my roommate expressed her frustration to me regarding The Mooch's response to a possible receptionist position at the engineering firm where my roommate is an executive assistant: "I didn't move to New York City to be a receptionist." And I further lost my patience with our living arrangement when we asked The Mooch to begin paying $300/month on June 1 and she replied that she would rather pay $200.

To continue fairly noting the occurrence of events, The Mooch did end up taking the receptionist position at the end of May 2009, but not without some strong encouragement from my roommate. And The Mooch did begin paying $300/month on June 1 after I made it clear that it was not negotiable. But to be completely blunt, I don't know how The Mooch failed her NY teacher's licensing exams this month when she has supposedly been studying for the last six months - sans the responsibilities and long hours associated with full-time, or even part-time, employment. Maybe she should have spent less time walking leisurely around the city with Starbucks coffee.

I don't know what to do even though I know what I need to do. But even though she has it in her heart to completely take advantage of our generosity - and potentially permanently tarnish her close friendship with my roommate - I don't have the heart to tell her that I think she's a puerile, manipulative, indolent sloth - to put it lightly.

Help!

Dear Abby ... [sigh]

*No offense to current baby-makers; I totally want to be a baby-maker one day, but I refuse to use my current so-called friends in order to achieve my eventual, long-term dream of family life. Or step on my friends for any other reason, for that matter.

"Things I Love" Thursdays - The Bryant Park Post Office

The origin of the definition to "go postal" may very well lie at 23 West 43rd Street, where the postal workers of the Bryant Park Post Office will do anything in their power to ensure that you are having as bad a day as they are by the time you walk out with your book of stamps. I can always count on them to be abrupt, irritated and rude. Their consistency is comforting.

Rather than despise their attempts to spread worldwide exasperation, I love them for it. Sometimes when I've experienced way too many unwelcome surprises in the office, I venture down the street to the postal sanctuary, where I know I will find a familiar scowl to remind me that no matter how bad my day has been, postmarking boxes and redirecting customers to the proper mailing forms is always worse. The sky is always bluer when I exit that place.

Except for the little Asian woman with the photos of her family at the far corner counter. And I'm not just saying that because I'm half Filipina, but she is the only one I have ever seen smile, bid me good day, or not talk to me like she is chewing my face. I avoid her when I am having exceptionally bad days.
"Things I Love" Thursdays are inspired by "I Love New York" (BNY, February 14, 2007).

A Year Ago Today: Any Given Super Bowl
Two Years Ago Today: Fashion Empire

Mo' Money, Mo' Problems

Paying rent aside. Having a (social) life in New York City is expensive. Even when ... and especially when you are trying to budget in a faltering economy.

Last night, I joined friends visiting from North Carolina at Comix and laughed hysterically at jokes that my parents definitely would not have liked or appreciated. Entrance to the comedy club was free, but a two item minimum still put me over $20 with one appetizer and a glass of wine.

And tonight, I struggled internally with the financial headache of widely-accepted corporate dining etiquette. Excited to accept a dinner invitation with fellow executive assistants within our company, we dined at the posh Gaby Restaurant in the Sofitel New York. Having carefully chosen a soup and salad from the appetizer menu and split a carafe of wine, I gritted my teeth and added my credit card to the restaurant billfold when it was suggested that we split the bill five ways rather than itemize our charges, which included several $30+ entrees.

I generally find it tacky to itemize charges in a fine-dining restaurant, especially when the difference one might end up paying between their bill and someone else's is less than $5-10. It is often easier to simply split the bill equally throughout the table. As a waiter in an upscale establishment in Cashiers, NC, I was often annoyed listening to groups of old ladies argue over a $4-difference in the cost of their meals when splitting checks. However, it is equally aggravating when no one acknowledges that you ate a much cheaper appetizer course than the entrees that others ordered. Even more frustrating is the fact that you don't want to be the tacky one pointing out that you ate less, especially when dining out with colleagues. This is probably why I should get in the habit of carrying cash instead of regularly depending on my credit card.

Walking home to my Hell's Kitchen apartment, I regrettably lamented over the fact that I had spent over $60 in two days ... and just two days after I had sworn to better manage my money, cut down on brunches and happy hours, get fewer manicures and pedicures, and even chose a cheaper Halloween costume.

If you, too, are getting to know your inner Recessionista, visit City Wendy for tips on how to stay fabulous on a budget. I hope she adds tips on how to accept dinner invitations without getting stuck overpaying for your friends' or coworkers' sirloin steak. But when it comes to the cost of living in NYC, is there nothing to say but se la vie?

A Year Ago Today: No post
Two Years Ago Today:
Far from Rice Crispies
Midnight Police Raid

Lessons Unlearned

Ironically, you'd think I'd have learned the system by now.

A Year Ago Today: Currently Taking Bets On How Long It'll Take Me to Get to JFK on the E
Two Years Ago Today: Time Flies ... Sometimes

NYC Airports + Bad Weather = Equation for Chaos

Flying out of JFK on time is ranked in my Top 10 List of Impossible Things to Do, just below finding a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City and right above solving the general quintic equation in radicals.

My original flight to Asheville, connecting through Cincinnati on Wednesday evening was cancelled due to bad weather, and every subsequent flight through which I attempted to rebook was cancelled one at a time throughout the evening until no options to Asheville were left. JFK to Atlanta. Cancelled. JFK to Charlotte. Cancelled. La Guardia to Charlotte. Cancelled.

I preferred to remain at JFK for seven hours trying every rebooking equation possible rather than lug my bags around the circumference of the airport on the AirTrain for 20 minutes ($5 each way) to the E ($2 per MetroCard swipe) and ride for another 40 minutes back to Midtown. Only to have to return the following day for a 6am flight. I even considered hopping an express bus to La Guardia - until all their flights were cancelled, too.

To those foreign to middle-class Manhattan dwelling, problem solving in JFK for what was roughly equivalent to a workday may have seemed a fatuous alternative to a 3-hour round-trip commute. But when a 15-mile trip to the airport, dragging your luggage on public transportation, can take an hour and a half door-to-door, you'd almost prefer to sleep at the airport.

Luckily, Mayra and her boyfriend recently moved into a house in Queens, a few stops on the A from JFK. And luckier still, her boyfriend has a brother, who was willing to sleep over and drive me to La Guardia at 5:30am. The ultimate resolution to the quadratic JFK squared equation was to reroute me out of La Guardia and through Atlanta with a final destination of Asheville, North Carolina, at 11am on Thursday.

But the puzzle continued to become more complicated. The following denominators were factored into the following morning.

1) Torrential rain and slow traffic
2) Blown transmission at the exit to the airport
3) Cabs unwilling to stop on the expressway
4) Dodging highway traffic with my small carry-on suitcase to get to a willing cab waiting on the shoulder (still pouring rain)
4) Longest check-in and security lines I've ever seen at LGA
5) First-class security line comes to a halt over a suspicious item when an airport official moves me and another 6:50am passenger to the shorter line
6) The security attendant suddenly decides to go on break and won't let me through the metal detector until someone "tags her out" when the same airport official cuts us back into our previous line
7) The woman sitting next to me in the exit row was unable to assist in the event of an emergency and there was confusion in switching seats with a man who "was promised a window seat for switching"
8) Our plane arrived at a gate at the far end of Terminal A at ATL; my connection was at the far end of Terminal D (click here to see why that sucks)

This blog was posted from Asheville, NC.

A Year Ago Today: Phone Photo Ops - 40/40 Club
My Blog Blows, But It's My Life
Two Years Ago Today: Top Ten Favorite Cullowhee Memories

Job Market Realities

Trying to help my friends get a job at the company for which I work has made me realize how competitive it is to get a job here (my roommate alone has had two interviews in two different departments). Or any major company in New York for that matter, especially with today's economy. It has made me realize how lucky I am to be working here, and how amazing it was that I received the break I got.

A Year Ago Today: Lunch Break/ing News: It IS A Small World
Secret Asian Man
Two Years Ago Today: Two Weeks From Today

What Once Fed a Family of Four in North Carolina

I now live in a world where paper towels, two bottles of household cleaner and a box of cereal cost $26.07.

One Year Ago Today: Greensboro, Atlanta and Not Quite Back
Two Years Ago Today: Internet Thoughts

The Latest Congestion Pricing Strategy

The New York Times Quotation of the Day:

"It’s very clear that a significant portion of the increase in transit use is directly caused by people who are looking for alternatives to paying $3.50 a gallon for gas."
WILLIAM MILLAR, president of the American Public Transportation Association.

From The New York Times Business section:
Gas Prices Send Surge of Riders to Mass Transit

Since Mayor Bloomberg couldn't do it, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan is working on it.

Out Sick

New York City is a miserable place to be sick (e.g. subway cars and station platforms to and from doctor's appointments). Dealing with the MTA is a raw way to size up reality after the doctor gives you bad news. At least I didn't end up being that sick passenger, whose health condition gets announced to the entire subway line when delaying train traffic.

Why didn't I just take a cab? Oh, that's right. I gave my cab money to my landlord last week.

And I Thought the Seventh Avenue Line Was Bad

What we have to look forward to if New York City doesn't choose to see the bigger picture for Mayor Bloomberg's New York congestion pricing plan (at least, I think there is a bigger picture to be seen beyond the daily inconvenience of higher bridge and tunnel tolls):

http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08040701.html
I guess they don't really believe that "there is another train directly behind this one."

More about the opposing views
In this corner, fighting for congestion pricing:
Campaign for New York's Future
And in the opposite corner, campaigning against congestion pricing:
Keep NYC Congestion Tax Free

“When two elephants fight, the grass suffers; and, when the same two elephants make love, the grass also suffers.”
- Swahili Proverb

My fellow commuters, we are the grass, as the death of Bloomberg's proposal at the state level meant that New York City would miss the deadline to qualify for $354 million in federal funds for traffic aid.

Please Use All Available Doors ... If You Can Get There Before I Shut 'Em

Dear MTA,

I understand that rush hour is a busy and hectic time for your staff. However, if your conductors are going to instruct passengers to use all available doors and then immediately thereafter shut the doors promptly before one can get to the next nearest available door, maybe the conductors should consider leaving the closing doors open a few seconds longer so that passengers can use the other available doors.

Regards,
BNY

P.S. And please stop telling me that there is another train directly behind this one ... when there isn't.

P.P.S. And about that other thing ...

NYC Mass Transit Wants You to Cry Them a River

This evening was the first time I have been really pissed off at the city. Well, not so much the city. Just its mass transit system. As a Southerner with fading memories of the wide open roads and interstates of my former life, it is still so crazy to me that I can be less than 10 miles away from a destination, and I cannot get there in a decent amount of time.

I missed my 6:26 p.m. flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, because of the sporadic incompetence of the New York City bus system. After a fresh manicure and pedicure at a nail salon on 125th Street, I was patiently waiting at the M-60 bus stop near Fifth Avenue at 4:45 p.m. Within the next 45 minutes, only one M-60 bus would arrive, and it was nearly full. I waited as an older woman boarded the bus, then I stepped aside to let a disabled man enter the bus ahead of me. But before I could lug my suitcase up the steps behind him, the driver shut the doors and waved the rest of us back to the curb.

I watched at least half a dozen of each M-100, M-101 and BX-15 buses go by - none en route to my Point B. As time wound down, I attempted to hail taxi cabs. If you ever want to feel completely helpless, stand at a busy intersection at rush hour and try to catch a cab when you are intensely anxious. I finally spotted an available cab, but the driver asked me where I wanted to go,and then apologized that he could not take me there and drove away.

At 6 p.m., still on a sidewalk in Harlem, I called Delta Airlines to discuss my options. No more flights to Charlotte today. Thus, no $25 flight change fee within the 3-hour, same-day flight window. My only choice was to pay a $50 ticket reissue fee plus the difference in airfare. Bummer.

Just as I was preparing to call Tosha and apologize for not being able to make it to her wedding tomorrow (at least we had fun in Miami), a saving grace: The 6:26 p.m. flight was experiencing a 20-minute delay so - though I still couldn't make check-in - I could change my flight to the following day at no cost. I'm not sure how that worked exactly, but I didn't question it.

As I dragged my suitcase back to my apartment, I bitterly thought of all the things I'd tell the MTA city bus system if I felt like they'd ever care to listen:
1) It makes no sense for the greater majority to have a bus stop on every block. I can often watch a pedestrian pace the bus for at least five avenues. Can't we do every other block and cut the stops in half?
2) Run more M-60 buses during rush hour; then again, I've never previously stood at an M-60 bus stop for more than 15 minutes.
3) Provide customer satisfaction training and anger management courses for drivers.
4) Buses, pedicabs and taxis should have their own lane to share on major avenues and cross streets since mass transit is serving higher volumes of people and could be an incentive to use public transportation and lead a greener life. From where I stood at the bus stop, I watched an M-101 bus take over five minutes to get a block and a half in gridlock traffic.
5) It makes no sense that I was 5.91 miles away from La Guardia (according to mapquest.com), and I could not get to the airport in 90 minutes.
6) Going back to the first bullet point, I believe that having a bus stop on every block is contributing to urban obesity.
7) [Bleep], [Bleep], [Bleep] and [Bleep], [Bleep], [Bleepity-Bleep-Bleep]!!!

I continued to feel more and more enraged as I waited for an M-100 bus to take me back to Amsterdam, and I watched four airport-bound M-60 buses roll by. Of course. There they were. And just when I thought my day couldn't get worse, I noticed a woman walking down the street with four screaming kids. And across the street was a man in a wheel chair playing cards with the end of his pants tied in a knot at the end of his amputated leg. And then I saw a homeless man crouched in a sheltered entryway. And, of course, as if scripted in a movie, there was an ad on the side of the bus stop for the former smoker with the hole in his neck stating, "Nothing will ever be the same ... not even the little things."

New York City will do that to you. It'll back you into your own little corner and flick you in the forehead with its middle finger or even slap you around a bit until you start to feel sorry for yourself, and then it'll get in your face and remind you that it could always be worse. And then the little voice in my head added its own two cents: "What? You think the world revolves around you and when you step out of a nail salon? Stop being a whiny bitch."

But before I completely end my whiny rant: Here I sit in Harlem when I should be getting ready to go out in the Queen City with Monique, Ana and Kelli. They've been dancing for the NBA for three years so I know they're out somewhere right now rolling V.I.P. style. I've never had a dull night with them, and as I broke the bad news, the text messages ensued:
"Slacker! We had the evening all planned out!"
"I know. Moki told me. You are in BIG TROUBLE! Hurry up and get here."

Later Kelli left me the funniest voicemail message I have received in quite awhile. And for the first time, I missed the South. Or maybe I just miss my girls. And now for the irony: I am stuck in New York for the night, and I don't want to be here.

And now for the reality: It could always be worse.

Phone Photo Ops - Pacing an Express Train

This morning I decided not to deal with the commuter mania happening on the subway platform at 96th Street. I watched as the downtown no. 1 train emptied into the station to await an express no. 2 or 3, and as the doors shut and the no. 1 train lurched forward, I saw a downtown no. 3 pulling into the station.

I'd be damned if the MTA doesn't do that shit on purpose. Not only am I not afforded the option to switch trains with the new given knowledge that an express train was in close proximity, but I've had the reverse happen, where I am on the no. 1 as it arrives at the station and an empty express train is leaving. And, of course, the express train that arrives a few minutes later is packed. I would bet money that a radio conversation between two conductors goes a little something like this:

No. 1 local train conductor: "I'm approaching 96 Street. What's your 20?"
No. 2 express train conductor: "Roger that. We're at 96. 'Bout to leave now."
No. 1 local train conductor: "Wait for it ... wait for it ... ok, I'm pulling in! Shut the door! Go! Go!"

In the big scheme of things, switching to an express train between 96th and 42nd Street generally only saves me about 5-10 minutes, and as my best friend mumbles to people who are rudely in a rush: "If you're in that much of a hurry, you should have left yesterday."

But I think New Yorkers would generally be happier in the morning if the conductor would make announcements like:
"Welcome to 96th Street. It's a beautiful day in New York City. Transfer is available to the express 2 and 3 trains. A downtown 3 just left 110th Street and will be arriving in 2 minutes."

Maybe they do make announcements like this already; I wouldn't know because I can't usually understand the conductor. In any case, this morning I was annoyed as I watched a no. 3 express train arrive at 96th as we left on the no. 1 local, but I was weirdly comforted moments later when the no. 3 had not overtaken us at 72nd Street, and at 66th Street we began pacing a no. 2 express, which was moving very slowly and stopping frequently.

From an almost empty no. 1 local train, the look of discomfort and disdain is clearly visible on the face of an anonymous commuter pressed against the door of a packed no. 2 express train.


As we sped away on our local train, leaving the express train in our dust, I rode comfortably seated into the 42nd Street-Times Square station and began a lovely New York day.

To A/C or not to A/C?

On Sunday, May 27, I blogged about the heat and my need for an AC:

"... Despite roughly four hours of sleep, I woke up early this morning in a puddle of sweat in the sauna that is my apartment and immediately decided that today will be the day that I make legitimate efforts toward finding an air conditioner and having it installed in the air conditioner box under my window.

As the back of my legs began to stick to the normally soft microsuede on my couch, I came across reruns of "Run's House" on MTV and noticed in one particular episode that DJ Rev Run's birthday party had been held in Tenjune recently.

"Oh, that's where we were last night," I thought to myself as I seriously debated whether or not to buy a lawn chair at the corner $.99 store and camp out in the frozen food section of the C Town across the street. I've had two cold showers in the last seven hours."

However, I have been dealing with this inner turmoil over the purchase of an air conditioner since I moved into my apartment last November. I knew when I moved from North Carolina into my best friend's living room in the Bronx during the hottest month in New York's recorded history (August 2006) that an air conditioner would be a necessity. I even had all those winter months of opportunity when air conditioners were cheaper.

Yet the same financial reasonings of a recent East Village Idiot blog post have had me in my own internal back-and-forth for months while my family and friends (who live in the South and don't understand housing without AC already included) regularly ask me, "Have you bought an AC yet?"

PLUS, I can only buy an AC that fits in the huge sleeve in my wall, which - though covered - is not insulated and let in the cold air all winter. My ONLY window won't accommodate one, which would ultimately block my view of Jimmy Hoffa's burial ground anyway (= Hudson River) and the only ACs that fit in sleeves at PC Richards currently cost more than another plane ticket to Miami.

And don't even get me started on how I'd get it home. Ever since I sold my car and became a card carrying member of the MTA, I've been stuck in that dark public-transportation abyss: if I can't carry it, I generally can't have it.

That abyss has kept me from making large purchases in New York that I would have easily made in the South without having to mull over the following options: 1) pay for delivery, 2) pay for a cab, but then figure out how to get it up to my apartment, 3) push, pull, heave, drag it - or a combination of (2) and (3) - all the way home.

And thus the question of a new New Yorker becomes: To be with AC or not to be with AC?