Blame the Rain

Thank you, Sofia S., NJ, NJ for your review of Penn Station in NY, NY. 

In a couple of years, when your youngest child is old enough to communicate, and asks “Why was I born on the floor of Penn Station?” you get to tell them, “Well sweetie, Mommy had to finish writing a Yelp review.” They’ll think for a second and then say, “Oh” as if that makes perfect sense. Around their freshman or sophomore year of high school, they think about your answer again and realize, that’s actually pretty fucked up. This causes a slow-building, but ultimately major, rift in your relationship.

Weekends begin to be spent with their friends rather than your family. They start wearing only black and shopping at Hot Topic. That place still exists? You think. The answer is, apparently it does. One day, while doing laundry, you smell Black and Milds on a Slipknot shirt. You pray they don’t get hooked while simultaneously hoping if they do, they start smoking real cigarettes and not that cheap shit. As a high school graduation gift, they ask if they can get their belly button pierced. You decline and they accuse you of being “a God-fearing c*nt.” The accusation shakes you to your core and you decide to take a different approach and play the part of a cool mom. You get your belly buttons pierced together; it hurts like a motherf*cker and feels trashy, especially after having three kids.

They announce they’re taking a gap year and moving to “the city” in the fall to find themself. You try to enjoy your last summer at home together, and for a minute it seems like everything is going to be alright. Until you find out they’ve been stealing Xanax from the dog and selling it to the kids in the parking lot at the local 7/11 to make some extra cash. You don’t know what to do about it since there are no parenting guides to pills being stolen from animals (not even on Reddit!) so you do nothing, again.

The only apartment they can afford is on Staten Island and you hope that a grisly daily commute on the ferry will knock some sense into them. What you don’t know is that they’re renting a room from a retired cop named D.J. who has a Blue Lives Matter sticker on his Ford Super Duty and a loaded gun in the drawer of his nightstand. Despite rapidly becoming a fierce liberal, your precious baby hate-fucks her “landlord” in exchange for a break on the rent. They don’t mind feeling like the trash they know they are because they were born on the floor of one of the most irritating transportation hubs in the tri-state area. 

They get a job handing out “free” tickets to comedy shows in Times Square. The fact that scamming tourists into watching people who probably never should have moved to New York do standup was the best they could do only further fuels their self-hatred and they fall into a deep depression. They go from drinking Colt 45’s out of a paper bag on their break to drinking Jager-Red Bulls out of a coffee cup on the ferry ride to Manhattan. They start to score drugs - anything from Xanax to Percocets and poppers - from the costumed peddlers on Broadway. 

When they come home for Thanksgiving, instead of the usual gaining of the “Freshman 15,” it appears they’ve lost it, and in some f*cked up way, you’re kind of relieved. They speak of their community of “theater” friends with a frenzied enthusiasm that you’ve never seen before. It’s so nice to have your baby be so passionate about something for once! Starving artist or not, maybe the move to the city was a good idea, even if you rarely get to see them. You slip them a little cash as a treat for all their hard work and send them on their way, anxiously awaiting a longer visit home for Christmas. 

But they don’t come home for the holidays. Instead, they spend Christmas Eve doing coke off the tits of the blue M&M in the bathroom of the McDonald’s on 45th. Later that night, they head down to St. Mark’s to Whatever Tattoo. They get the longitude and latitude coordinates of Penn Station on their lower back. Why not embrace your roots! As a little secret holiday bonus, the tattoo artist inks in the coordinates of the Sbarro across the street from Penn Station rather than the actual station. They’ll never know the difference. 

It doesn’t take long for your baby’s addiction to destroy their life. In a particularly bad comedown, they miss a Saturday shift (the busiest) and are fired. They try to join their furry friends for a while but the only costume available is Minnie Mouse’s naughty and mischievous sister, Mandie Mouse. The attention it solicits gets them in trouble with the local police and they’re forced to hand over the suit. 

The only option is to put in some extra “time” with D.J. to keep renting their room. When their tattoo, which inevitably gets infected, starts to puss, he helps put a hot compress on it and brings them antibiotics. Just when they begin to think maybe this life out on Staten Island as D.J.’s “house frau” might not be the worst thing, D.J.’s house is raided by the FBI. He’d been selling automatic weapons out of the basement. Oh, Staten Island!

With nowhere to stay, they do the last of the cocaine - which luckily was on their person and not taken into evidence during the raid - they head to Penn Station and buy a ticket back to NJ, NJ. They show up at your door, all 90 lbs of them, saying they’re sorry they left. They want to go back to school and study Child Psychology to understand their trauma. You’re not surprised that becoming a “theater person” wore them down like this. It, unfortunately, happens to so many. 

Months later, once they’re settled, working a regular part-time job, and going to the local school, you wonder if all of this could have been avoided if you’d closed the Yelp app, walked over to the escalators, hailed a taxi, and delivered your baby in a hospital - most likely Mount Sinai West on 59th between 9th and 10th - rather than the Hepatitis C, urine-coated floors of Penn Station. If it just hadn't been raining that day...

One out of five stars, Sofia S. 

See you next Tuesday.