The Nap

I am so, so glad that I slept all afternoon yesterday after coming home from my 6:40am flight out of Akron, because I was thus unavailable to go to the movies with my roommate. You're thinking, "Wow, this girl is an awful person," but you need to be patient and read on. I'm not that much of an ass. Sometimes.

When I finally showed my face last night post-nap and bed hangout, I found my roommate in the kitchen looking like she'd tried to take on the Jets' defense single-handedly. It wasn't hard to coax her tale out of her. Apparently she'd gone to the Loew's theater at Lincoln Center to see Never Let Me Go, which is one of those disturbing and emotional sci-fi movies (although nothing, NOTHING, will ever be as disturbing as Splice. Seriously. I felt violated afterward. Felt unclean for days). She went alone and was sitting at the end of the aisle. Mid-movie, an older woman sitting on the other side of the aisle got up, fell over, smashed her head on my roommate's armrest, and started compulsively vomiting everywhere. And no one did anything.

My roommate, who was obviously cornered into her seat by this, tried to get people around her to help. With a lack of response, she ended up jumping over the woman, leaving her purse and everything, and sprinting out of the theater to the concession stand. Panicked, she told the popcorn-serving kid what had happened and to get medical help. He looked at her, looked at the long line of cranky, obese American customers waiting for their extra butter, and told her that he couldn't help her, she'd have to find a manager.

At this point, she was beyond freaking out. As she was running around, she noticed the high-up booth of staff dudes, and she yelled up at them to call a manager and help. She couldn't tell if they heard her though, so she kept trying to find someone to help her. Finally, a movie-goer who had heard her encounter with the pimply concession idiot approached her, explaining that he was a doctor and would take a look at the woman. In the end, they ended up dragging this still-vomiting, unconscious woman out of the theater with minimal help from other audience members. The booth staffers had heard her and walkie-talkied a manager, who was completely useless. Loew's staff asked my roommate to come speak with them, and while she assumed they'd question her and take her name and phone number, they just gave her a movie voucher and apologized for the "inconvenience." She waited for the ambulance to come to make sure the woman was taken care of by semi-competent professionals, and took a cab home.

The thing that I think is most disturbing about this isn't the total lack of competence or response whatsoever by the movie theater staff. My main problem is that this theater had plenty of other people in it. AND NO ONE DID ANYTHING. My roommate said that the only other person in the theater who really moved to help was an old man with a cane, who could not keep up when she sprinted for help. Everyone else in the theater? Some people turned to look. Most continued watching the movie, ignoring the commotion.

I make comments pretty often about rude, jaded New Yorkers. I've mentioned before that people in this city generally try to act like they are unaffected by spectacle. For people here, it's pretty important to come off as a native New Yorker. I understand that when you live in a city unlike any other city in the world, the way to fit in and stay sane is to make your own mini-bubble. You kind of need to ignore the spectacles in order to get anything done. But at the same time, a lot of it is for show. People don't want to be seen gaping at something that's just "typical" crazy New York. You would NEVER want to be thought of as a tourist.

Last week, my friend told me a story that I thought summed it up pretty well. His friend's cousin, who had never been to a large city, let alone the world's center that is New York, came to visit. Before they even got out of Grand Central, the cousin saw a man sitting in the corner, covered in newspapers, and she freaked out. "We have to help him!" The New Yorker quickly shushed her, embarrassed, and explained that it wasn't a big deal; that kind of thing was normal. The sad thing was, her response was the right one. He was ashamed of her public outcry against the typical misfortune of a homeless person; his preferred method was to shut his eyes to it. And his was the "normal" response, in this environment.

City people are usually thought of as experienced and worldly. In other words, civilized. After a couple of months here, I already have found myself turning up my iPod to avoid beggars on the train. But when I think about it, I'd rather make eye contact, shake my head, and say, "I'm sorry" than turn away. I'd rather be a wide-eyed Ohio girl for the rest of my life than the kind of jaded New Yorker who'd ignore a woman having a medical emergency in the movie theater.