A Fruit and a Boot

I’ve got to get to work on time today and the elevator is taking an extraordinary long time to arrive at my floor. It finally appears with two young gents, dressed in traditional Yeshivish garb, standing inside. They are carrying the lulav and etrog, which Orthodox Jews integrate into the morning prayer services during the week of Sukkot.

After a relatively warm weekend, the chill seems to have returned and I zip my jacket when I walk outside. Someone has left a teddy bear at the front of the building; if it were a bit colder and had white fur it would pass for a snowman.

I get to the train station and board the A, and sit next to a middle-aged man with graying white hair. Underneath his suit is a cleanly pressed white shirt and a tie which, though likely unintentional, match his red and gray Zoom Air sneakers. Across the way is a tall blond woman, attractive and in knee high brown leather boots. The train is not very crowded, and she easily takes the cake. That is, until she reveals a make-up case and starts to work on her eyelashes. It’s one of those things no one is really meant to see as it happens, and the publicity of the display brings her rapidly from beauty to shame.