…visiting Son Two, who is an EMT in Brooklyn, and yes, we are very proud.
We hadn’t met up with him yet, and so we were doing our parts to boost the economy by killing time in a shopping mall that also also houses the subway station. Mr. DJ had gone off in search of boots he could wear to NY that would make him Fit In. (For those of you who don’t frequent New York — and I count myself among you — dressing the part of a native is incredibly challenging. Things you couldn’t get away with in, say, Carthage, Missouri, are quite popular there. Black works. So do high boots — for women — but boots in general work well no matter the weather.)
I wandered up to one of my favorite outlets, ever, where the clothes are wonderful and discounted maybe 80 percent. Shopping there is an adventure. Stuff’s on the floor. You can match a coat with a skirt, but you have to dig for both. I was digging through for a rain coat, as it was pouring out and I’d borrowed Mr. DJ’s coat and he was getting soaked every time we stepped outside.
And then I saw it, precisely the coat that would make me look cool — and, incidentally, keep me dry — and if I wore it I wouldn’t look like I was trying too hard to fit in. Except my new coat was draped over the person of a young woman who was modeling it for herself in front of one of the random full-length mirrors scattered around the store. (No changing rooms, sorry.)
I asked where she’d gotten the coat, and she walked me back to a rack, but there were no more coats like that one. As we were rifling through the hangers, she said I maybe could take the coat she had on, as she wasn’t sure it was her size.
But it was. And she looked, in a word, great in it. And I didn’t have the heart to lie to her so that I could acquire that coat, so I told her she looked fabulous in it and unless it was tight in the shoulders, she should buy it. She smiled, said thank you, gathered her stuff, and headed for the cashier with our coat.
As she was walking off, she turned and said, still smiling, “But you’d look great in this coat, too,” so I said, “Then take good care of my coat.”
One of the many things I love about New York — or any big city, as I’ve found this to be true elsewhere — is that the people are often fabulous. They don’t fit the stereotype of being angry and not interested in talking and generally rude, not at all.
And you’re liable to have a New York Moment any old time, no matter where you are.
Dating Jesus 
Doesn’t it make your day to have a pleasant and gentle exchange with a stranger? Now, you win the coolest non-NYer of the year award but you and Miss Cute Coat both are to be commended for your class.
PS did you get the maker’s name on the coat? Try and find it elsewhere, I’ll help on the internet search!!!
I did not. She never took it off after I saw her in it and it seemed gauche to rip the collar back from her neck to check. No matter. It’s just a coat, but it was a cool exchange and I don’t even mind her taking the coat home.
That was a cool exchange. We New Yorkers are really not that bad. I was born and raised in New York. When we traveled out of state and people would ask where I was from, I’d say New York and they’d immediately assumed the city and asked what I thought of visiting the country. They never suspected that my house was surrounded by fields and the next house up the road was a half mile away. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned to tell people that I was from “upstate New York” even though upstate or downstate, we’re all New Yorkers.
Does your son love Brooklyn? I have a cousin who grew up in a tiny Wisconsin town who loves living there.
He loves it, and why wouldn’t he? It’s a great place, lots to do, lots of interesting people. I think I’d forgotten you were a New Yorker!
Maybe I never mentioned it.