Cross cultural understanding
All the guys who work at the gas station near my apartment are from Bangladesh (there is a lone woman manager, also from Bangladesh, but the other workers detest her—she won’t even let them wear warm hats in the winter but forces them to wear the gas station baseball caps—and so I now detest her too, in solidarity) and yesterday morning, after the snowstorm, pretty much every single person I’ve ever seen working there was outside shoveling. (Except for the manager, of course, who only ever stays in her little office, wearing the winter coat she tricked me into selling her for $2 at our stoop sale.) Anyway, I was out on a walk with Matt and Mirabelle but there was a Range Rover that had just gotten gas that was trying to drive out into the street and it was in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking our way and also that of some of the shovelers, so we all stopped and watched as it tried to drive over what was basically a three-foot-high snow bank. I was a little dubious, and also (to be honest) not totally wishing it the best of luck, because freaking Range Rovers, you know? It was all pristine, even with the weather.
It did get stuck for a moment, and while the wheels spun around spewing snow everywhere I looked over at the closest shoveler. “Range Rover,” he was saying, shaking his head and chuckling knowingly, which was exactly what we were doing (“Check out the Range Rover,” Matt said, shaking his head), as though we all knew there was a reason we hadn’t bought that car. A moment later, though, the treads caught and the lady inside drove away (it’s not for nothing that you have an $80,000 vehicle), and Matt and I continued on with our walk. By the time we got back the gas station was completely clear of snow.
Also, completely unrelatedly, on that walk we saw both Paul Giamatti and Christian Bale. Is this a thing? Do celebrities always come out after snowstorms?
