Try This for Fun

Here's something to do for fun if you have a lot of spare time on your hands:

Move to New York City. Wait a couple of years. Turn on the television. Watch an episode of Friends. Hilarious! If you're not nodding your head with a knowing smirk, I can guarantee you are not a person in your 20s living in the city. Of course, even before I moved to the Big Apple (or Satan's Playground, to use my father's charming nickname for it), this show seemed a bit unrealistic, and I don't care how many times you mention the lease on the apartment is in Nana's name. However, watching a few episodes of the show last night while I was babysitting and keeping in mind that I was supposed to be seeing a depiction of life in contemporary New York City was downright laughable.

Obviously, every sitcom is a fairy tale in some way, that's where the entertainment factor comes in and I'm not going to sit here and deconstruct Friends because I've got better things to do like sit here and bite the heads off my Animal Crackers- you're next, llama! But this puts me in mind of something that happened this weekend. I took the Germans to Rhode Island for a visit and we were touring one of the turn of the century mansions that served as summer cottages to the robber barons of yore that Newport is famous for. We were visiting The Breakers, home of the Vanderbilt's of railroad and shipping fortune. We were standing in Mr. Vanderbilt's bathroom, which is probably puny by today's McMansion standards and I turned to Thomas and said, "This bathroom is larger than my apartment back in Brooklyn." He laughed. "I'm serious," I said.

"I know," he said, "that's why I'm laughing." I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour...

So then I thought of something else that might be good for a laugh: download the instrumental music they use to underscore every episode of Friends and play it in the background of your everyday New York life and see if it makes things more wacky and entertaining. Here's a scene that is a composite from my yesterday morning and evening commute. Let's throw in a few Friends characters and see if it is nonthreatenly funny enough to warrant a MasterCard sponsorship:

You are wedged into an overcrowded subway car with a giant unwashed man speaking in a little voice. It takes about about 30 seconds for him to switch to grunting like a pig and you realize you are basically nose to armpit with a raving schizophrenic. For no reason, the train stops for 10 long minutes between 7th Avenue and Atlantic Avenue. The only announcement from the MTA is that there is a train up ahead of you. No shit, Sherlock, this is the New York City subway. There is always a train up ahead of you. All of the passengers are trying desperately not to make eye contact with the one who is having a major break from reality, yet they can't force themselves to turn away. Suddenly, Phoebe begins channeling the voice of her dead grandmother who tells the poor bastard to sit down and be quiet and clip his toenails when he has a minute. Joey turns to a fourteen year old girl whose breasts are enlarged because she is five months pregnant. Looking her up and down he says, "How you doin'?" A Silly-Putty faced Ross yells out of nowhere "WE WERE ON A BREAK!" leading the train to conclude that this effete man with Tourette's Syndrome is probably a friend of the guy who touched of all this chaos in the first place. cue music: do-do-do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do slow dissolve