I Stepped On A Squished Rat & Other Horrific Tales

Before I get into what occurred around 6:30PM ET this past Wednesday evening I'll just provide you with a bit of background. I've lived in  NYC for about seven years now, (3 years continuously and 4 years during undergrad) I've gotten used to the things that make the city unique. Everything from the putrid smells of summer to the copious amounts of rats that come scurrying out at you on late evenings. Yes, I've gotten used to it all; but that doesn't mean that I think it's acceptable. During my tenure here I've made some wonderful memories and bonded with some beautiful people.  However, the city has also kicked the shit out of me; it can truly be an unforgiving bastard when it wants to be. I've watched the sunrise from penthouse rooftops and I've seen body bags (with bodies in them) on the sidewalks. There really isn't any in between here, although once I thought I had bed bugs and it turned out to be a false alarm so I suppose sometimes things aren't always as bad as they may seem. Anyway, I'm rambling so let's get into the incident of the squished rat and other horrific tales. I've seen some truly monstrous things, please do not proceed if you have a weak stomach.

The Tale of the Squished Rat

Midtown is trash. NYC has a population of 8 million people and normally that doesn't bother me unless I'm in Midtown. Unlike the wasteland that is Times Square, midtown can't be avoided. My last office job was in midtown. Every day I would get on the overstuffed subway and commute 20 minutes with a bajillion people. Getting above ground wasn't much better. Once you finally make it to street level you have to contend with tourists, people who don't walk in straight lines, cyclists and a million other aggravations. I haven't had to commute in over a month (PRAISE GOD), so I'm not used to dealing with rush hour anymore. However, this past Wednesday there was a work mixer at my new job that I decided to attend. As the train pulled into the station I tucked my Kindle into my purse and made my way down the long corridors of the Herald's Square train station.  Finally above ground, I was nearly knocked down by a rather rude woman who I assume thought I was invisible considering the force at which she ran into me. Brushing of her attitude, I patiently waited for the light to turn green so that I could walk across the street. I watched the light change and my sandal covered foot left the curb.  As I stepped down into the street, my foot seeped into something, squishy. Gross, I thought to myself, clearly someone dropped something mushy in the street, it's just my luck to have stepped in it. I turned my head to see what the offending substance was when I saw it. My beauteous bejeweled sandal had just come into contact with a flatten rat. I saw the tail and the intestines just sitting there in the middle of the road. I felt my stomach began to bubble as vomit rolled up into my throat. I took a deep breath, and calmly walked to the nearest Starbeezy's where I asked for a cup of boiling water and proceeded to scrub my shoe and foot in their filthy restroom. Basically I should have stayed my ass in Harlem.

The Starbucks Pervert

Speaking of Starbucks, I'm sure I've given them way too much coin in the past decade or so. On one particular day my sophomore year of college, I was waiting for a friend in the Union Square Starbucks. I ordered my drink and beverage and took  seat at a empty cafe table. I noticed a disheveled looking man seated at a table not too far from me, but NYC is full of disheveled looking people so I didn't let it pull me away from phone. (This is before Instagram and before I had an iPhone so I have no idea what I could have possibly been looking at.) After awhile, I got the feeling that someone was looking at me so I looked up again at the man. That was my first mistake. While customers had been coming in and out of the coffee shop, this man had been masturbating. I looked up to see his rusty peen in his hand under the table. Needless to say, I abruptly left that Starbucks and my drink behind and I've never returned to that location. Not in almost six black ass years.

The Rotting Foot

A month or so ago, my lady friend and I ventured into Victoria's Secret to procure some lady undergarments on the Upper West Side. As we approached the store we noticed a homeless gentleman laying down outside of he store. Suddenly the foulest stench known to man permeated the air. I immediately began gagging and my friend frantically ran to the door to try and escape it. As we approached the store entrance I looked back (I don't know why I always look back smh clearly I'm a masochist)  to see the man peel of his sock. If its even possible, the stench grew even more vile. The man revealed a rotting blacking nub that used to be a working foot. It was awful. As we stepped inside the store the security guard was frantically running back and forth spraying perfumes  as the stench wafted in. Needless to say it put a damper on our shopping excersion. (I did get some pretty panties though.)

I have seen quite a bit during my tenure as a New Yorker. Somethings I won't write down here because I'd rather not recall them.  As long as don't encounter anymore squished rats or rotten feet I think I might be OK.

xoxox Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxo

Please Go Away: On Kanye, "Nice Guys" and Other Nauseating Fuck Boyz

I had no intention on writing about Kanye and his disastrous interview with The Breakfast Club, mostly because I've been done fucking with Kanye.  Since 2010 he's continued to show his ass. Also, there have been so many others who have called him out on his continuous coonery. Here’s one particular article that articulates how he continues to be strong and wrong.

Kanye’s Comments About Amber Rose Highlights How White Women Are “Always” Virtuous No Matter How Skeezy Their Past.

I really don’t know why he continuous to slut shame a woman he was once in love with; a woman who inspired My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (my personal favorite Kanye album before I lost all hope) while he puts his wife on a pedestal especially since they basically have the exact same job. Kim (because of her whiteness, privilege and plastic surgery) just gets paid more for it. I'm not going to even get into how foul and disgusting I find Kanye and his horrendous "30 showers" comment (or the fact that he condones statutory rape) because quite frankly I'd like him to go away. Perhaps we can lock him in a vault until he's capable of acting right...or perhaps until he's on a healthy dose of antipsychotics. (My friends and I also think that he may have Asperger’s which quite frankly makes all the sense.)

So as I said, I really had no intention of talking about the fool until I scrolled on IG while ignoring the Oscars and I came across this.

I was simultaneously enraged and amused. After sending my best friend a screen shot, I realized this is the black ass problem with self-proclaimed "nice guys" and fuckboyz all around. They really believe deep down that because they are average ass human beings who do the bare minimum to be productive members of society, not only are they supposed to win some prize but women are supposed to open their legs and hearts to them. HUH?!!!

Sir!! You have to be fucking kidding me!!! Having a job and degree are pretty basic. Hell I have two of each. And any grown person should be washing their ass on a regular bases and using deodorant! So I ask, what is so special about anything that has been listed here? I was horrified further by some of the comments that were left underneath this post. Foolish people (both men and women) cosigning on this nonsense. What baffled me was the fact that no one ever said, you look like a whiney bitch with very little self-esteem perhaps that’s why you don’t have a woman. Perhaps you haven't learned anything about tact, self-preservation and the proper use of social media.  Perhaps that’s why no girl will look at you. Maybe if you were really a prize your so-called "female friends" would have been tried to scoop you up. Perhaps (and I'm just speculating here), you're as dull as doorknob with little to no personality or hobbies. Maybe your body doesn’t "stink" but your breath does. Perhaps it’s the fact that your idea of taking a woman out is a basic ass dinner/movie date (SNORE). Or moreover, maybe it’s your disgusting entitlement that makes you think you should be rewarded for being an average ass human being.

I know one thing, as a woman if I had posted some bullshit like that about how I fill out a sweater and I have a degree and can cook a meal or two then I would have been called a basic, desperate bottom bitch, and I would have been laid to rest across social media. So why is this acceptable for men?!!

My best friend said it eloquently, "How did we get to the point where a Black man thinks that he’s doing something [extraordinary] because he's not in jail, or having children, etc.?"  I for one don’t know where we went wrong but I do know I'm not going to sit here and throw men a parade for doing the absolute bare minimum. And another thing, how dare y’all continue to act like women who don’t want ya'll asses are superficial moneywhores or whatever else chauvinistic term y’all want to throw at us today.

Listen, the common denominator here is you. If women aren't responding to whatever it is that you’re selling, its time to fix, tweak or upgrade your product.

This whining though has got to stop! Be different, have something to talk about, take her somewhere other than the nearest AMC and TGI Fridays. Here's a novel ass idea...Pick up the damn phone instead of texting.

Maybe these suggestions will help some of ya'll or maybe they won’t. Perhaps some of you will come for me and say that I'm a bitch and I'm bougie or whatever the fuck. Either way, it’s not me that has the issues with finding a woman(or man). All I ask is that if you're going to continue to be a bitch baby and go on and on about how women a’int shit and you're some diamond in the rough that no one has yet to discover at least go away and leave that off social media.

We already gotta be subjected to the Kanye's, Stevie J’s and Floyd Mayweather’s of the world.

#SMH

Are You A Fuckboy?

Chocolate Girl in the City.

PS. If you've never listened the The Read then you’ve been sleep. This episode “Say No to F**k Boys” was named one of the top 25 podcasts of all time. (Start at 54 mins in)

Working 9 to 5 Just to Stay Alive

It's Friday afternoon and I've been at work since 8am. it's my second week and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm doing a smooth contemplation of PhD Program. I must admit when I was offered my position I wasn't super enthusiastic about it, but I thought it had potential.....(Oh naive one how wrong you were.)

While I was frantically applying to positions I had a foolish delusion that right after grad school I would end up in some decent level position in the "urban" department of some cable network giving them insight on how Black people should be depicted onscreen. Alas, despite all of my posturing this was not to be the case.

HELP!

Now let me be clear, I still work at an extremely prominent company in the entertainment industry...my position however leaves little to be desired. I was out to dinner with my friend the weekend before I started and he warned me that the first week on the job was going to SUCK.

He was not wrong.

At the end of the day last Friday I wanted somebody to say something crazy to me just so I could politely gather my bag and exit.  Sadly this dream was not realized. I had miraculously made it through a 45/hr work week and I had no excuse to not return Monday morning.

I envisioned a bougie version of this (sans the man part)

The first week was really bad for me because I didn't have a desk which in turn meant I didn't have a computer.... Please ask yourself when is the last time you sat around for 9 hours with no access to a computer....Don't worry, I'll wait........ It was utterly horrific. By Wednesday I came home and had a small mental break down because I just wanted to take a hot shower and got to bed. Of course my tub was stopped up and I was without DRAIN-O. Obviously the only thing left  to do was to curl up in the fetal position and cry about how my life sucked and how unfair it was.  Surely this first week was meant to break people, meant to deprive them of all of their humanity so that company could begin to weed out the weaker links. Still somehow (mostly thru pep talks with my besties and sister), I managed to get myself together and show up the next day.

As I stumbled into my apartment last Friday night, Chipotle and Ice cream in hand (attempts at the gym totally foiled for the week), I began to plan my exodus. I realized when I signed up for my current position it wasn't exactly going to be the cat's meow but Chile let me tell you this is for the birds. Because my hours are early, late, long and ever changing I feel like I rarely have a chance to do anything during the week.  I AM NOT about this life.

This was further reinforced last  Saturday when I attended a panel of lovely academics who discussed the implications in depictions of Slavery in the cinema. It was everything. I got to listen to things I cared about, I watched Gordon Parks' Solomon Northrup's Odyssey (1984) (the original 12 Years a Slave). All in all my mind was stimulated in a way that it had not been during the entire work week. One way to stifle a group of talented and creative people is to have them sit behind a desk for nine hours transferring phone calls and getting people coffee.

 I acknowledge that some people will say I should be  very grateful many people are struggling to find a job. I will say I am very grateful to be able to pay my bills. But I also ask myself at what cost? I worked extremely hard all throughout college and graduate school. I worked, interned and volunteered. I have to think that all that, as well as the ridiculous amounts of loans that I must begin paying back in November count for something.   I am still very young so I have a ton to learn but I also realize that's advantageous to me. I don't have serious responsibilities, I'm malleable, ever changing and growing. All of the work I put in must mean something, no one deserves to be miserable.

Today I cleaned off a tissue from a guest who had blown their nose and left it on the counter. I was also screamed at by a caller because it was 8am and the person they wanted to speak with wasn't in. (This can't be life.) But alas, there are some bright spots it is Friday after all and the FedEx man was giving me Boris in Soul Food the Series fioneness .

FRIDAY

xoxox Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxox

I Can't!!!!!!!!!! Episode 4

How could you sacrifice these for a fifthly dirty little boy?

Tragically last week I was on Saturday night 24 hour duty for my lovely dorm....*side eye*. But alas it comes with the free housing and meal plan. Anyways, it was about 1:15 in the morning and I was making my rounds. I get to one of the last floor when of course music was blasting down the hallway. Now this is usually over and done with really swiftly, but of course some of these imbeciles, being an extra special flavor of tea had to take forever to come to the door. I was immediately pissed because I was trying to watch The Preacher's Wife and eat my leftover salmon croquettes, mac and cheese greens and cornbread. So anywhoo this fool comes to the door and I barge in. He tries to be smart and have a little attitude  so I had to promptly READ him before evaluating the situation. I look around this foul little room and despite the fact that the lights are out I can see that the floor is COVERED in filth. There was crumbled up Styrofoam, empty beer bottles, the freaken works. Anyway I'm disgusted and I ask the boy is anyone else here, as I start making my way to the back room, the kid starts panicking and another kid (dressed in a full suit) pops out. So I'm talking to both of them about how foul the room is and that they should not be blasting music loud enough for the entire building to hear and I figure out that neither one of these fools lives in the building when I hear something move. Of course I barge past them and turn on the lights in the back room. I SWEAR TO YOU. Like seven scantly clad girls (wearing epic shoes I must say, I peeped some Jeffery Campbell's, Louboutins and Sam Edelmen and Brian Atwood's) stumbled out of the fifthly room. Shall I clock the ways of how terribly ridiculous this situation is? You're a grown ass woman (18-19years old) but still old enough to know better. And you would dare go to some nasty negro 's room(negro being a universal term for all little boys) and subject your perfect shoes let alone your body to lying on the a disgusting floor. Let's not even get into the stench of this place. Basically I can't. Come on ladies let's just have a morsel more respect for ourselves or at the very least our shoe-wear. You need to do better.  I really CAN'T.  Two more months and I'm done with this ridiculousness. xoxoxo Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxox

I Can't!!!!!!!!!!! Episode 3

???!!!!!!!! I have no words

Like many of you who were not watching the All Star Game, I was glued to the Oscars seeing if Octavia and Viola were gonna take home Oscars. Octavia won but Viola lost out to Meryl Streep. I couldn't even be mad because its Meryl and she's a goddess. Anywhoo, like may of you I was horribly jilted when Gabourey Sidibe popped on screen. (Picture shown above). I'm actually disgusted. It looks like she has a crusty mop on her head. WTF she could've at least had the decency to put on a damn hat so we didn't all have to wonder in horror what the hell is going on. Kid Fury tweeted that it looked like a matted pussy (excuse the language) and that it possibly smelled of mildew. As my bestie tweeted, this is just one of the reasons why she'll always be known as Precious.

xoxooxo Chocolate Girl in the City xoxoxoxox PS. I thought Viola did the damn thing wearing her natural hair :)

I CAN'T!!!!!!!!! Episode 2

I know I can be bougie, but I'mma need these people to do better, before I have to get them ALL the way together.

Smh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It shouldn't surprise me that I can't even go a few days without incompetent people screwing with my life. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really can't. So yesterday, I was at work minding my own business in my cubicle when I nearly had a heart attack. The day had been a fairly uneventful one. I listened in on a meeting, checked some emails, peered at the photo of Beyonce on Terrence Howard's lap that hangs over my desk, had a chicken sandwich, you know the norm. Anywhoo, something told me to check my tuition bill since I have a couple of grand due on it by March 1st.

This very picture !!!

Now let me give you some background, I am on a deferment plan with my bill. I've already paid exactly half of my tuition for the Spring semester and I owe the other half in installments. A portion is due March 1st and the final portion is due April 1st. Now when I signed in to view my bill these feeble minded buffoons say that I owe $30,000!!!!!!!!!!! Are you freakin kidding my, that's well over five times the amount that I am supposed to owe. After clutching my heart and breathing heavily for some time, I calmed myself down enough to really look at the bill closely. AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT THESE UNQUALIFIED BEASTS DID??!!!!. Instead of taking my scholarships and subtracting them from my bill, they ADDED THEM. Shall we reexamine? At the very basic level of their jobs, all these people have to do is know that when someone pays their bill or gets additional funding you SUBTRACT that amount from the total bill due. OBVIOUSLY that's too much to ask for, and they want me to act a plum fool especially considering the fact that I graduate in 3 months I really DON'T have time for this.

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl In the City xoxoxoxo PS. I really wish my fro was a lot bigger for this whole ordeal.

I CAN'T!!!: Episode 1

I'mma Need You To Have All Types of Seats!

Basically because I'm surrounded by incompetence I had to start these mini episodes just talking about the foolery that enters my life. They shall henceforth be known as "I CAN'T".

Let's get into the first episode: So yesterday, I was working the front desk at my dorm and we were giving out cookies to whomever could answer a Black History Month trivia question. Mind you the question had been posted around the building and the answer had also been strategically placed on the bulletin board in the mail room for all to see. The question was as followed: What court case established "separate but equal" which was eventually overturned by the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision? Answer: Plessy v. Ferguson. Now, I was pleased that about half of the students did in fact know the answer. Others did not know, so instead of guessing they either asked me or went to look at the board. Not this one ignorant heifer though. Let me tell you about this broad SMHHHHHH!!!. This girl looked me dead in my eye and told me the answer was Roe v. Wade.  I really CAN'T!!!!!!! I actually REFUSE!!!! It took all I had not to reach across the counter and thump her in the head. I mean are you serious?? ARE YOU REALLY SERIOUS??!!!!!. Not knowing Plessy v. Ferguson as a self involved privileged twit is one thing. But as a woman not knowing Roe v. Wade is actually UNACCEPTABLE. She then had the nerve to ask for a cookie I told her "NO!" and then  I proceeded her to stare at her until she walked away. Obviously its time for me to graduate because obviously these people weren't breast fed.

xoxoxo Chocolate Girl In The City  xoxoxoxox

PS. LMAO!!!!!!!!!!