Intense Sandwiches and Taiwanese Friends

It all started when the M104 bus blew me off.

No, no, it began with a phone call. A well-placed call in the midst of apartment pandemonium. I dialed up V&T and took a stern tone to the receiver and said, "I'd like to order a chicken parmigiana sandwich. I'd like for it to be ready by 7:45 pm."

"Is that all you want?" Coy, leading me on. She would.

"Yes. That's all I want."

Judging from this short conversation, it's clear that the woman at V&T, Rosa, knew exactly what I needed.

"This is an intense sandwich. Wow!" He exclaimed as he unwrapped the tightly enclosed hoagie roll. Aluminum foil edged into every crevice. We sat across from a chapel, a supposed coffeehouse in its basement. We rested upon a stone bench with words of honor carved into it.

"I told them to make an intense sandwich for you. Well, I intoned that anyway." I crossed my legs toward him and showed him my leaf cookies. He was not interested.

"Delores," he began, "did you really tell them you wanted an intense sandwich?"

"Yes, I knew it was on the menu." I know these things. He called me Delores because he likes the way it sounds. Delores and Betty Lall get along well.

As we laughed, two young women skipped along and stood beside the halfsphere (or hemisphere, to worldly folk) in front of us. Dottie and Ben Stein, they were called. Tall, lanky, Dottie wore a knit beret, while Ben Stein sported an American Apparel hoodie, purchased from the local boutique that caters to Columbia.

They were clearly Barnard students.

Giggles. "Wait, talk now. No, talk now! Just say something!" Ben Stein sat a few feet from Moonif, my gentleman friend, and called to Dottie who was now dancing in the center of the halfsphere.

Moonif and I exchanged looks, then smiles, then what the fucks.

"Say something." Dottie mumbled words underneath her Goodwill-found scarf. She shook her head and burst into laughter, a jolt of vim, as though someone tasered her from beyond the halfsphere.

I half considered tasering her.

Dottie paused, mania shaking underneath streetlamps. Her hands were out, mid-sentence "jazz hands" at her waist. "Can you hear it echo?"

"No! No!"

Ben Stein sprinted from her seat and skipped down East Walk to some crazy women's studies class at Schermerhorn. Dottie followed close behind, tripping over her too-long scarf, her vision obscured by the knit cap pulling its way down her forehead.

Moonif and I wondered if they were on E, or if we absorbed Dottie's sound thus preventing her echo. There's something about this halfsphere, I thought.

After the fun we had with the sandwich and geeks, Moonif escorted me to his dorm. Or Taiwan, as I like to think of it. Look left, look right, they surrounded me in the elevator and followed me down the hallway.

So, why do you call it Taiwan instead of Broadway, floor 11?

Quite simply: the only people who live on his floor are Taiwanese.

Is this possible?

Yes, it certainly is. Rosa, Dottie and Ben Stein would agree.

Such diversity at Columbia University! Instead of integrating students, it is better to lift populations from other countries and place them into particular dorm floors--that's diversity. A wellness floor for Asian people, though I'm not sure they asked to be there. To assuage the "multicultural" pain, I left my Hungarian Pastry Shoppe leaf cookies there, among the Taiwanese.

On the way home, I tried for the M60 on 120th and Amsterdam. I waited, waited, waited for the great white whale to bend onto 120th.

There it is! My white whale!

I forced my Metrocard into the air, up, up, into the sky and waved it around as the light turned green, freeing the bus to sweep me off my feet and take me home.

Me, I'm here, waiting for you!

I even jumped into the street. I even jumped.

The M60 passed me without stopping.

Another bus blew me off tonight. Thanks, MTA. True lifesaver.

Next time, I'll dance in a halfsphere and call out, "Is this echoing," as the bus comes my way. Perhaps then it will stop for me. Or roll me over and taser me.