We Found Love In a Trash Can

A New York City gym: Upper West Side Moms are working out in their matching Lululemon sets, Soccer Dads gingerly lift too-heavy weights, InstaGays stare at the weights and somehow have perfect, sculpted muscles, and I’m sweating through my over-sized Mariah Carey Christmas concert tee struggling to do a thirty second plank. I have both lower boob and upper tummy sweat - the sweat lines forming a smiley face on my tee - and my hair is everywhere but where it needs to be. I’m not cute or attractive when I workout. My fake tan is spilling from my forehead onto the mat below ruining the gym towel I’m hovering over. I’m a literal dumpster fire just trying to hopefully squeeze into my 34 waist stretchy jeans from H&M for work tonight, but I thought about carbs today, so the zipper probably won’t zip. So, I continue to try and hold my plank while vigorously holding in a fart because the hot dad decided to sit next to me to do his stretches and he looked at me, which I instantly took for flirting, and now I’m spending the remainder of my plank planning our future: should Cecil and Timber (our future adopted children) go to private or public school?

I pretend I have a phone call so I can get out of this damn plank, put on my jacket, open my green juice that tastes like literal dirt but it’s supposed to make me “glow,” and head for the exit. I know I’ve accomplished nothing at the gym, but just having people see me leave makes me feel accomplished, so I’ve got a bit of a pep in my step. My hips suddenly begin to sway a bit more while my feet synchronize with the pop beats blasting in my headphones. I bounce down the stairs, swipe my MetroCard, and await the 1 Train back to my apartment. And by apartment I mean a windowless dungeon shared by me and three straight guys, so, yeah, it is… pungent.

I’m standing on the platform, swaying to the whistle tones of my bat shit crazy queen Mariah, when I notice movement to my left. It could be any number of things: a woman carrying a stroller down the stairs, a couple bickering about their live-in nanny, or a giant rat dragging a slice of pizza behind him. Like any good New Yorker, I ignore it. It’s not my issue. Then I see it again. And again. I pull my headphones off, pause my music, and turn to see what all the commotion is about.

A homeless man - well, allegedly homeless, I don’t know anything about him - is digging in the trash and flailing his arms in my direction.

“Excuse me, Sir,” he says through his mangled beard.

Sir? So formal. He sounds smart.

“Uh, yeah?” I reply flippantly trying to sound cool and confident through my sweat soaked shirt which has now become ice cold in the winter air.

“You real handsome,” he spouted. “Real handsome.” And lowers his head back down to the task at hand: a, presumably, used Cheez-It wrapper. (Damn, Cheez-Its sound so good right now...)

Okay, so, a normal sane person would have put their headphones back in and walked away. But a thirsty - and I mean a downright dehydrated cactus alone in the desert - person like me decides to soak up the compliment. I’m an Alabama 8, A Montana 6 ½, and in New York I’m an imaginary number. So, yeah, dating is rough.

I turn back to him, and with a blushed cheek reply “Wow… thank you,” and I do that thing that girls do when they’re flirting and tuck my hair behind my ear, but I have the gay-standard fade haircut, so there’s nothing to tuck, so I just look like a gentle boy on the spectrum, which, maybe he’s into. Everyone has a type. My type: preferably breathing, but I’m easy going, so nothing sets in stone.

This is the point where all these random thoughts are passing through my head. Maybe he’s a famous Hollywood actor doing research for an upcoming movie? Maybe he recently got fired from his hedge fund job and he’s spiraling (Fun fact: I thought hedge funds had to do with landscaping until 2018) and I’m here to save him and return him to his Park Avenue penthouse. Or maybe he’s a brilliant brain surgeon and he’s got early dementia and I have to be his hospice nurse - in a skimpy white skirt, of course - that takes care of him in his Park Avenue penthouse.

I picture us frolicking through Central Park in the middle of summer without even an ounce of sweat. Suddenly my clogged pores and under eye bags are a thing of the past. I’ve evolved into the pinnacle of beauty: Barbara Corcoran, American Businesswoman. I’ve got a structured, tailored pantsuit on, Manolo Blahnik’s strapped to my feet, and a coffee in my hand at all times. I’m yelling things into my phone like “Buy” “Sell” “Trade” as I strut down Park Avenue (I swear I know other streets in the city) to my black Uber XL.

Patrick and I - he seemed like a Patrick to me, something about his eyes glistening in the reflection of the used Cheez-It wrapper - live a globe trotting lifestyle. One weekend we’d be in France eating pasta because, like, I don’t do snails, and the next weekend we’d be at our ranch in Idaho with no cell service swatting away mosquitoes pretending we loved it because we watched one episode of Yellowstone and it “spoke to us.”

I could picture us telling our friends and family about our “meet cute” on the subway platform. How I had just come from a spin class - I’m going to lie and say spin class because it makes me seem more approachable - and he was down on his luck, looking for something to eat when he saw the perfect snack: me. Cute, right? I can picture the mom, a few glasses of white wine down the gullet, lapping it up. The dad might be a bit trickier as I have a strict rule about sports: If there’s no half-time show then what’s the point? And if the half-time show is Maroon 5, then the thing just doesn’t exist to me. But, he’d slowly come around to my quirky sense of humor and my flare with a cocktail: Tequila heals all wombs.

At this point, I feel the sudden gust of hot, swampy wind coming towards me which either means the train is approaching or I’ve burped into the wind. People are pushing past each other to get to the front of the platform and I’m instantly grounded back to reality by an elderly woman jabbing her pencil into my side. I look back at Patrick, but his head is back in the trash can digging away. I get that side smirk on my face like “Yeah, that’s my guy.” And I squeeze myself onto the packed train, some white collar man’s sweaty upper arm resting gently on my shoulder. This city is pretty disgusting, I thought, but there’s also something magical about it. The man then belches into my face as the doors close, and I think to myself “Is this flirting? Is he the one” And just like that I’ve moved on from Patrick. A May December romance. Or a 2:00pm to 2:05pm romance. And then the train whisks me away as Bradley - the white collar guy seems like a Bradley - gently drops beads of sweat onto my shoulder. Romantic.