New York, New York
 

Totally spontaneous trip to the Big Apple. Shift supervisor had a hankering for a new fake purse. A discussion of a flea market in Ephrata morphed into a trip to Canal Street to engage in the underground economy. Fascinating stuff. I'm working on a longer description of the trip, but I wanted to share this latest innovation in inhalation technology ...

Ha! Those look like modified Israeli civilian model gas masks, the kind everyone there keeps at home in case a rocket is lobbed into their neighborhood and it might have a biological or chemical warhead. They've just replaced the stubby front mounted filter. Even unused ones are pretty cheap on the surplus market.

Dope smoking deluxe.

Adventures begin with an idea.
Flea market. Let’s go to this big flea market out in Amish Country. They have all these great fake purses.
You know, the best fake purses are on Canal Street.
Where’s that?
Thought. You don’t get out much, do you.
New York City? How would we get there? Who wants to drive?
Exactly. No sane person drives to New York City. Lots of choices. Bolt Bus, NJTransit, AMTRAK. AMTRAK is only good if you can really plan ahead. Costs an arm and a leg each way if you book short term. It would be a great option for the Fall, though. Transit is like a ten or fifteen dollar ride, then you take the subway down to Canal Street.
Okay, let’s go.
What do you mean, let’s go?
Tomorrow. Let’s go tomorrow.
You’re coming too, right?
I’m pretty sure I’ll succumb to even mild peer pressure. Okay. I’ll come.it will be an adventure.
Transit station selected, carpool arrangements determined. We'll daisy chain our way up to your house, and then drive straight to the station. Plans made, directions printed. No, we don’t need a schedule. I may not know shit about taking a bus, but I can totally rock rail travel. There’s a train like every 15 minutes.
Everything falls apart at the first meeting point. Routes and meeting places adjusted on the fly.
One the way.
Offer for hookup to one of the companions from what has to be the only straight male we encounter all day.
Subway construction necessitates five train rides to finally get to Canal Street.
Hot, loud,confusing. Hot time, summer in the city, back of my neck feeling dirty and gritty earworms in my head.
First store.
You got Michael Kors watches? Sure sure, have on rack, looky good? What kind you like? Big chunky, rose goldtone, multi-dial watches. “GENEVA” on the face. No man, the good ones. Then a magic trick, suddenly there are two rose gold Michael Kors watches revealed from under a pashmina. Thirty-Five Dollar, Sixty for two. Another magic trick and two becomes fifty. It was so fast.
Purses with generic swirly logo plates are switched out to make a Chinese sweatshop bag into your beloved designer classic. You want Michael? You want Tory Burch, we make Tory Burch, okay?
Along the streets accented barkers call, Chinese, Senegalese, Korean, that one sounded like my Ghanian friend. Bags, you want bags? Watches? Come with me, I show you the best, Bags? Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, Gucci? Come with me, come with me?
Follow me to the entry point for white slavery ring, mugging, murder, worse? Why should I follow you, and then suddenly I am following an elderly Chinese Woman with an umbrella.
You come? You come?
Is there an opium den at the end of this labyrinth? We walk several blocks.
A perfectly ordinary looking store after all the cloak and dagger. Money changes hands. The old woman knows a good mark when she sees one, and waits. We enter our first back room. It is hot, steamy. The smell of chemically treated leather permeates the moist air. I am surrounded by Michael Kors, Burberry, Vuitton. We have arrived.
The old lady moves us along to the next. More of the same. A front of souvenirs and a back room of counterfeit magnificence. Some arranged carefully, others thrown carelessly on the floor.
Finally brush her off. We want to see more than just her friends. We want something different. And lunch. Lunch in little Italy. Pretty girls get tables on the street, decently attentive waiters, and two hunks of bread in their basket. We get one and a waiter we see for drink orders and not again for a quarter hour. But we get to watch the street. Groups of women going into a shop, coming out with bulging big blue bags. That’s where we need to go.The perfect crossbody bag with a big MK disc on it. Oh joy. I have joined the club.
Bags, bags, pick photo, I bring to you. A laminated card of Louis Vuitton. Delivery service is more expensive. I’ve gotten use to $35 and $45 bags. Louis is $150. No Louis for me.
I want a Chinese fan. Walk into a store. Hear a familiar voice shouting, “Hey, Rehab!” Happened again. Everywhere I go, I know somebody. Get the fan and a maneki neko promising fortune.
A second visit to the watch magician gets us into the most secure of back rooms. The door is hidden like a secret door in a Victorian mansion’s library. Hurry, hurry all get in. Look quickly, don’t take time to look too close, you may decide that you’re not getting anything special and argue price. Buy this now and go. But wait. Must check peephole in door before I can let you out. Seem more dangerous. The theater is part of the sale.
The guys next door are an Indian Mutt and Jeff team. Comedians. You know how to get back to Penn Station? What, you fucking think I work for the fucking City of New Fucking York in the broadest Brooklyn ... but he tells us. Then he riffs on the relative penis sizes of Indians versus Chinese. Fucking hysterical. I should have asked him if he had Rolexes. Might have gotten a discount for how much I laughed at his shit.
Wandering back to Penn Station, check out some street artists, amazing to watch them work so fast and so clean.
The ride home is simpler, quiet, like taking a carload of kids home from an amusement park.
Stopped by to see a local oddity attraction in Berks County, got kissed by a camel.
Great day.

Wow, what a ride. How many do you end up with in your entourage?

I love the way you told that story. Sounds like you had fun. Btw, they got any good quality Miu Miu there? :D

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Probably. It's New York! What's miu miu?

Tried to get the girls to go into a Vietnamese restaurant, but they aren't very adventurous in terms of food.

There were four of us. The fifth had work she couldn't call off from.

Miu Miu is a brand name, like MK, LV, etc. :D I'm in love with this one purse but the price is just simply not justifiable. Even if I have the money for it, I wouldn't pay that much for a purse. But I'll pay for a good knock-off. :D :lol:

There are plenty of Vietnamese food that's not adventurous, hehe. I see lots of Americans in the Viet restaurants down here. :p: But then, I guess I am talking about Houston.

Loved the write-up. Thanks Wolf.

Sad to see on a second look that the "gas masks" don't in fact have ears, I was looking at the pegs. Shame. I liked the idea of people unintentionally dressing up an Anubis.